Image Manipulation--Blur vs Out-of-focus--HOW TO?

Jay Gladwell wrote on 12/10/2003, 4:36 AM

I have an image, shot on DV, that I want to throw out of focus (as if it were done while shooting). I've tried various blurs, but that's what it looks like--blurred, not like the focus was changed. There is a difference, if you know what I mean.

Can that "look" be achieved in post with Vegas?

Thanks!

J--

Comments

AlistairLock wrote on 12/10/2003, 5:18 AM

Sounds like you are wanting a depth of field effect rather than overall blur, ie, as you "pull focus" various elements of the picture go in and out of focus.
There was another post about adding fog or mist which effectively was running up against the same problem.

The picture needs to be split into layers, so each can be blurred differently, to allow the depth of field effect to appear authentic.

The only suggestion I can make is that if you have a foreground object and background object, and you want to throw the background out of focus you could use a cookie cutter, or make up an object mask in PhotoShop. This is assuming that either the image is static, or there isn't much movement on the various objects you want in/out of focus.

Former user wrote on 12/10/2003, 8:20 AM

You might try blurring Channels rather than the whole image. Sometimes playing around with blurring a Red or other channel gives more of a focus feel because the channels do not line up.

Dave T2

Sol M. wrote on 12/10/2003, 10:30 PM

Not sure about Vegas. Realistic DOF is usually done in effects packages. Commotion Pro had tool specifically for this. I've heard that After Effects 6 has DOF features as well, but I haven't tried them out.