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: 

[Photosportsman]

The addition of the lens blur in Lightroom Classic has been welcomed. I do a lot of sports images so being able to control the depth of field in post is game changing. The one  problem has been the goal net in football/soccer the AI has trouble bluring the backgroun without bluring  the net.
Looking forward to further improvements.

[glenaldo2]

I get the message below almost every time I TRY TO apply the lens blur tool. 

[Photomacsa]

I get this everytime I attempt to use this option. Actually once it actually worked.

[Photomacsa]

I cannot get it to work. See the attached screen shot

[ianl14365047]

I love the new feature. I am on a older i5 and while it is not lightning fast it really helps to take the focus off distractions I could not with the lens. The bokeh looks natural when toned down. Almost 1.6ish! 

[Brian Pawlowski]

Quick reaction on first time trying this.

I shoot prime lenses and mostly portraits. I tend to shoot tight and f1.8 or f2 often with a strict eye focus. This causes a rapid falloff in sharpness in a tight portrait and even full body.

For some reason even I'm not sure of (prehaps I'm frustrated with struggling autofocus on the Fujifilm GFX 100), I shot a session at f5. 

The :ens Blur feature seems a blunt tool. It grabbed the subject (3/4 figure) and extracted from scene and applied the lens blur to a mostly featureless background. That results in a weird effect... to me.

For a portrait it would be desirable for Lens Blur to at least go for an eye focus and create a map for the body roughly to allow the obviously less "forward" features to drop off.

I assume this is really asking a lot - but I'm already blown away by what you are doing in masking and such that I assume this is simply a matter of time. Still playing.

[The Zoe Martin]

Saved my bacon when I had a client sit in a window that doesn't look like it's been cleaned in awhile.  The lens blur cleaned the window!  

[wyntha]

The feature is very slow in analysing photos at the moment. Secondly it picks up the wrong subject to remain in focus. So for me I'd like to see a speedier lens blur with the ability to point at the subject that should remain in focus.

[สุทิน365292229be9]

yes

[Michael26760734fjha]

Works great.........saves me a lot of time when I have to work up 2500 files in two days......which is every week during race season.

[Louise22515312jm0g]

Hi, a newbie here, I was playing with Lens Blur, think I like it but what has happended is when I go to edit other photos I get a bright blue highlight/shadow on some subjects.....how can I remove this please?

[André28975789x3uj]

Très efficace, lorsque nécessaire et pertinent, avec suffisammment de réglages pour moduler au besoin. Délai d'exécution très raisonnable. 

[vinay36563047u0ds]

i can't use lens blur option sir  he unable to load lens blur problem

[ChrisBR]

Running Windows 10 with a fairly fast computer, Lens Blur uses an aweful lot of resources. It works but I get heat warnings on the processor and really bogs the system down. Otherwise, its a great feature. Just find a way to make it faster. 

[Douglas36573679wdb3]

Works nicely, easy to understand, useful effects...make it part of full release

[jeremyb42158125]

Great feature but Adobe recognozes it still needs refinement. A big feature would be masking inprovement options. I spend a lot of time refining subject selection prior to using the CR filter as a finishing touch where I may chose to add the lens blur. I would like an option to chose for it to use an inverted version of my refined mask selection rather that the current generated background which is not that precise. The tools are slow and often have to be repeated. I have 96GB RAM. It is not clear whether  the amount slider in the blur and focus tools ection affects the current swipe or all previous. Keep going on this one folks, it will be a game changing winner when you have refined it further and thank you.

[alh47]

I think it is a tool to use sparingly and with discretion but it can be very uesful in making confused backgrounds simpler.

[Diver4pix]

Lens Blur works great! I like the visualization and the ability to refine focus or blur with a brush. I think it would be fantastic if you could take this depth info into the masking tool so that you could do Depth Range masking on images not taken with an iPhone.

[Dougrominus]

no meu caso que trabalho com lentes escuras de alta milimetragem em fotografia esportiva, as vezes perco uma parte do assunto, mas no geral fucniona bem, so queria a opçao de sincronizar em todas as fotos...

[Blackcat25]

Lens needs ability (brush) to retrieve bits of subject from mis-diagnosis of what is/isn't background.

[Avilev]

I've used Lens Blur many times and other than system load, I am very pleased. I did have a problem with mis-diagnosis and the above suggestion of a "brush" would be a good solution. Being able to brush out the effect might be helpful in creative efforts also. See example. Notice waiter's nose: 

[karna]

Very useful, especially for me when the commission requires the background audience to be blurred without the foreground around the subject to be also blurred. Achievable previously but this makes it easier.

[Avilev]

Sorry - Me bad. I should have looked at the screen. You can "brush" away the blur effect with a fully functional brush. Just click on "Focus". Also, looks like you can seletive brush in the blur effect outside of the normal blur selection. THANIKS ADOBE!!

[Vedio36634456o5aw]

Quick usage looks fantastic. Right off the bat, one thing I would like to see is an indicator in filmstrip as to which images have lens blur applied.

[Vincenzo36640864sjbv]

It is a great new feature, thank you! It works very well, it's adjustable and the final result is very good and easy to achieve. Congratulations!