P: New AI-powered Lens Blur (Early Access) available across all surfaces.

[Rikk Flohr: Photography]

This post applies to Camera Raw, Lightroom Classic & the Lightroom Ecosystem products.

The Lightroom team is sharing an early look for AI-powered Lens Blur–giving you the ability to apply optical blur on any image regardless of how it was taken. Lens Blur is now available to try on all Lightroom surfaces.

How does Lens Blur work?

• Lens blur applies a depth-based blur effect, similar to what can be achieved with real-world optical lenses, by using AI-generated or device-captured depth data (when available).
• Lens blur will automatically prioritize focus for the detected subject, but you can also interactively adjust the focus distance. Precise focus range tuning is also available (currently desktop only: Lightroom Desktop, Lightroom Classic, and Camera Raw).
• You can also further customize the Bokeh shapes, highlight Boost (desktop only), and make depth map refinements (desktop only).

Will my Lens Blur adjustments on one surface be synced to other surfaces? I.e. mobile to web to desktop, and vice versa?

• Yes, all edits will sync. To revert settings, you can go back to previous versions or history steps, or un-apply Lens Blur settings.

Can I add Lens Blur settings to my presets?

• No, presets and copy + paste workflows are not currently enabled for Lens Blur during Early Access.

For more information, please check out Lens Blur. 

Please give it a try and share feedback in this thread as we continually improve this feature.

Lisa Ngo: Lightroom Product Manager

Current Popular Lens Blur Feature Requests:

• Add Noise Option
• Custom Bokeh

Stop by and give them a vote if they're of interest to you!

Posted by: 

[williamr42720831]

This is amazing! Appreciate the refine options, I think this the area some folks said they were looking for, but may have not played with to find. Its quite intuitive and the bokeh choices is a fun addition. 

Adobe, please remain awre that not everyone has the most up to date hardware or system, speaking about Apple Mac specifically. Want to upgrade but I am waiting for the AIO 27" or larger screen so I am limping along with a 2017 model and it cannot support Sonoma. Only goes as far as Ventura and I fear these great enhancements will leave behind the older models.

Well done Adobe!

[simonsaith]

We're in an era of rapid AI technology advancement... Adobe is only part of the eco-system.

[SDGT]

Tried Lens Blur on photo of cannon.  It work fine except for missing some of the spaces between the wheel spokes.

[simonsaith]

The Refine tool is good for this purpose. Expand the Refine collapsible widget to play with the focus/blur brush. Checkout Julieanne's nice tutorial video.

[PhilShaffer]

I would like to see a slider that allows you to change the exposure on the areas out of focus, that would allow one to further emphasize the subject

[Ashley331172697gcs]

I LOVE IT!! It works great it just runs slow. Other than that no complaints 

[ElliottIsANovice]

Nice - it really helped me on a particular shot! Cool.

[Brett23900768zvrw]

Just tried in Lightroom ... I'm blown away! ... took photos of a body building competition and this works even better than I thought it would ... softened the distracting banners behind and towned down the sharp downlighters above the stage.  ... will update my comments again as I move through the images.... great job!

[Petra31694765qjzw]

It's great! Would be grat to refine what it thinks are heads as parts of thumbs or hair sometimes get caught in the blur

[simonsaith]

Probably worthwhile to try out the Refine tool. Expand the Refine collapsible widget in the lens blur UI to play with the focus/blur brush. Checkout Julieanne's nice tutorial video.

[StefanKlein]

Simon,

I wished that the refine tool would not collapse automatically. If I have expanded it, it should stay that way. That´s like all other expandable menues in ACR behave.

[Simon S Chen]

It looks like it an ACR bug. LrD and LrC behavies correctly. I'll check with the team. Thanks.

[BarfingButterfliesMedia]

Personally, lens blur was something i dreaded but after adjustments made in the focal range, I liked the outcome. One thing I did notice was that the focal range does not have an indicator for where the subject is in said range. Ex: Yellow to Purple for the depth, having an icon in that range that inidcates where the subject is. Visually, I can see it in the photo, but my processor was having a hard time adjusting. I do know this is a Beta version, but I think that would help a lot with adjustments made to the Focal Range. 

If I am missing a step with the above information, I am open to suggestions and tips 🙂

[simonsaith]

When you select Visualize Depth, the overlays on the image show the following colors:

• Warm or Yellow: Covers the area that has a near focal range.
• Cool or Blue: Covers the area that has a far focal range.
• White: Covers the area that is currently in focus if you're adjusting the Focal Range controls.

[dancrowley]

Every time I apply the blur it locks up and crashes.

[John R Ellis]

@dancrowley, see the pinned reply at the top.

[Lucia25995226v9dt]

So far all good. Easy and fast tool, at least while using one image per time. I'll give it a try on a batch and see how it goes. Gracias!

[johanness10724281]

Hello Adobe Developer Team.
Interesting feature you created, I allready tested it with a few pictures.
It adds a nice bokeh-effect. But I have to check it out a bit more. First feedback is about the menu an user expereince in LR Classic in language german.
- Some additional hints on the sliders an switches would be helpful.
- How does the slider "Brennweite" works?
- What will happen if I reduce or prolong the white frame on that slider
- Neutral posiiton of the slider Zero? 50?
- is it possible to select a mask or a zone, where the effekt is primary applicable?
- Did you thought about Bokeh profiles, which simmulates typical lenses (for example Leica Summicron 35mm or other specific lenses)?
All in all - intereessting function -go ahead 😉
KR Johannes

[afeinphoto]

Unable to export lens blur images.  Receiving error message attached.  Have tried restarting program.  Turning lens blur off results in no issue export. 

Lightroom Classic version: 13.0.1 [ 202310121438-d2af310c ]
License: Creative Cloud
Language setting: en
Operating system: Mac OS 13
Version: 13.6.0 [22G120]
Application architecture: arm64
Logical processor count: 10
Processor speed: NA
SqLite Version: 3.36.0
Built-in memory: 65,536.0 MB
Real memory available to Lightroom: 65,536.0 MB
Real memory used by Lightroom: 12,159.5 MB (18.5%)
Virtual memory used by Lightroom: 435,855.9 MB
Memory cache size: 4.3MB
Internal Camera Raw version: 16.0 [ 1677 ]
Maximum thread count used by Camera Raw: 5
Camera Raw SIMD optimization: SSE2
Camera Raw virtual memory: 4551MB / 32767MB (13%)
Camera Raw real memory: 5237MB / 65536MB (7%)
Standard Preview Size: 1024 pixels
Displays: 1) 3456x2234

Graphics Processor Info:
Metal: Apple M1 Max
Init State: GPU for Export supported by default
User Preference: Auto

Installed Plugins:
1) AdobeStock
2) Aperture/iPhoto Importer Plug-in
3) Export to Photomatix Pro
4) Flickr
5) FocalPoint
6) Genuine Fractals
7) HDR Efex Pro 2
8) Helicon Focus Export
9) LicenseStream Upload
10) LRT Export 6
11) Nikon Tether Plugin
12) ON1 Effects 10
13) PhotoFrame
14) PhotoTools
15) Plugin Parameters

Config.lua flags: None

[Simon S Chen]

Which file format are you trying to export to? Would you be able share the .nef along along with the .xmp and .acr sidecars? Or if you can export it to dng and share the dng instead? 

[afeinphoto]

NEF > jpg.  Some images work fine and some do not.  All during same shoot.  Email me directly as I cannot share the photo. 

[afeinphoto]

Just exported a batch of 17 from the same shoot.  3 of them resulted in the same error. 

[Simon S Chen]

Ok. I  sent you a prviate message and please check. Thanks.

[Emily331394314jki]

This feature is incredible. As of right now early in my photography journey I am unable to purchase a lens or zoom lens that allows for this kind of compression that I just cant achieve in specific photos with my 85mm. At times sometimes it doesn't catch the hair correctly and it'll blur the hair but I love how you can go back into the picture with the blur brush and remove or add it to where its missing. Its pretty good with subject detection, you can barly notice that it's added in post. Please don't remove this feature, I actually love it. Only thing to really dispute is the lagging in the system which is normal since the same thing happens with the denoise feature, and to be able to copy and paste it to other photos. 

[Samantha33139813ql6e]

love the lens blur tool!