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: 

[Marlowe34747373iqgb]

the blur option is a great addition. Unfortunately it keeps blurring out not just my background but some of my subject which is obviously not useful nor intended. hope this gets rectified. 

[kipcarroll]

Lost for works! Brilliant work, Thank you so much!!

[Helmut Wille]

leider muss ich immer wieder lesen : Es ist ein unerwarteter Fehler aufgetreten . Dann funktioniert das Programm nicht Was mache ich falsch?

.unfortunately I have to read again and again: An unexpected error has occurred. Then the program does not work What am I doing wrong?

[Nick28172794jyum]

Please add a subtract brush capability to remove blur from areas that the algorithm has included but may be in error or may help the creative look.
The focal range adjustment doesn't allow precise local adjustment.

Thanks,

Nick Ariemma

[jjaylad]

The Lens Blur has 2 adjustment brushes but to make them available you need to click the "Refine" drop down:

Once they are visible you can pick which one you want to use and use it like you do any Masking brush in LR.

[default0j54qibpting]

Thanks for pointing that out - I had missed it. I don't see a way to REMOVE the blur effect using the brush - am I wrong about that?

[default0j54qibpting]

The Focus refinement actually works quite well - it restores focus to objects that have blurred, kind of like removing the blur feature.

Thanks again for pointing us to that.

[wonderstone38]

I love it!

But I'd like to apply my own depth map to it. 

[jjaylad]

I guess, in essence, LR is creating its own Depth Map. Are you saying you have a depth map file of some sort that you want LR to read the depth details from?

When I'm not happy with what I get in LR or when LR freezes or slows down, I sometimes flip the image to PS, where I select the subject onto a masked layer, then dup the background apply the same mask to it and invert it , make it a smart object then go to Filter/Blur Gallery/Field Blur and apply 9 evenly spaced adjustment points. (I made an action that takes it to that point.) Then I adjust those 9 points to suit the image. That works just fine too and gives near perfect control over the process, without anything slowing down and having to be re-started as happens in Lightroom using the Depth Blur. 

Of course there is a depth blur in PS Neural Filters but to me it is basically mimicking what LR does. I've used my action so often its kind of 2nd nature now, but I do love what LR does until it slows down or locks up.

[Maia34768762phij]

muito bom mesmo

[bud_ralston]

Is there any way to speed up the function? I have 256GB RAM, yet I get the spinning beachball every time I make an adjustment in Lens Blur. It's disruptive to my current workflow. Otherwise, I love it!

[jjaylad]

WOW! I thought I was well equipped on my laptop with 64g of Ram. 

I find that at first the Lens Blur works pretty fast but after a few changes or Focus/Blur brush strokes it slows down a lot and keeps slowing down. It only takes a minute to restart LR so I do that and it works OK again for awhile, then that process has to be repeated. I watch Task Manager in another window and it is amazing how fast the memory useage for Lightroom accumulates when using Lens Blur. 

Perhaps that's why it is still in 'Beta' and hopefully they will sort that out when it goes Mainstream.

[GJSmithPhotography]

This is very impressive and easy to use.  I would write more but I can't wait to get back in a play with the Bokeh slider on some older pictures.

Adobe inovation makes my life easier. 

[MacB70]

The lens blur works quite well. Sometimes it would be good if it recognized the objects like the mask tool does. It would be great if these two tools could be combined in an additional function. My example is two people in a forest scene with a branch reaching towards the focus. It looks very strange that this branch with the people remains super sharp. Although the algorithm is correct here, if I also blur the branch, the image looks more pleasing to the viewer.

[Fabio Vivalda]

I think it is an intersting option.

I was working on a particularly image of dear, and i was able to emphatize de figures of the animals from the background

[QueenFareeda]

this is really cool! Just decided to throw it on a photo to try it and I was impressed

[mitchelange]

Bonjour, Cette fonction est extraordinaire a continuer a développé et surtout la laisser dans les prochaine version. Je dois encore explorer les possibilité de celle-ci. Mais cela est déjà magnifique. ajouté les propositions des autres serait bien aussi. une option avec une échelle graduer dans la photo pour déterminer la profondeur de champs que l'ont veux clair et celle floue serait une vrai avancée. Merci

[Juall]

It works flawlessly on mobile, I find it useless on a mac as it's really hard to understand how to use it, so that even the same object or person gets patially blurred.

[Rafael32944954y59y]

Estou gostando muito. I am really like it !

[kbarre]

I'm finding that I get considerably better edge results in images with busy backgrounds if I start with the Blur Amount set to something like 20, then refine the edge with the Blur brush, and then DECREASE the Blur Amount to something like 15. 

I may be wrong, but it looks like it recomputes the entire background at that point, yielding cleaner edges in areas that had manual edits.

Neat feature. Will be very nice when it gets to a mature version.

[The Birdman of Panama]

I love the feature, but it has a difficult time with the tips of animal hairs or bird feathers. Lens Blur nearly always blurs these out along with the background. I've compared with with the background blur neural filter in Photoshop and, while Photoshop isn't perfect either, it's further along in this regard than Lens Blur. In the attached image, Lens Blur totally removed the fine hairs on the dog's right ear (left side of image). 

[jonathan90265]

Same issue. Also, I hope Adobe plans to support DNG files!


J O N A T H A N S E L I G P H O T O G R A P H Y *•

(personal info redacted)

[Benjamin247648709pqt]

Every now and then an object will not blur if it's very close to a subject. It would be very valuable to have a brush added to fix these areas when they appear. 

[Joachim27962572v7wn]

like the tool, does a nice seperation on subject and background 😉

[spdyob]

Very Nice addition to my tools in Lightroom.