Miniaturisation

[rayadagio]

Philippe - your show? Or mine? ;-)

Sounds like a fun project.

[Rolf]

For the focusblur plugin under Linux the packages

libgtk2.0-dev
libgimp2.0-dev

are needed. Then just the usual "./configure - make - sudo make install" ritual.

[RobA]

Hi-

Just wanted to point out an in depth description at my blog:

http://ffaat.pointclark.net/blog/archives/158-A-Better-Fake-Tilt-Shift-with-the-Gimp.html

And one point to add that I didn't have in there is that you want to use the perspective tool in gimp to straighten up any building perspective so vertical lines are all horizontal.  The eye then interprets the objects in the image to be smaller.

-Rob A>

[Rolf]

Silence please!   

This was the link for the next episode. I got all my insight into the plugin and the concept of the depth map from your site - and now all the people will read your blog and not watch the video. ;-)

[rayadagio]

Phew! I intended to put a link to Rob's blog in this thread. I was lucky. I've forgotten it ;-)

[RobA]

Sorry 

(I just got so excited watching I had to jump over and post!)

-Rob A>

[Rolf]

No real problem with that, of course! The moe information, the better.

[Dan]

After trying some of this....
 
It's surprising how the tilt is so integral for success.. and the more the tilt to a angle of a real miniature feel the better.  Seems below 30deg doesn't work as well for miniaturization effects. 

Selective focus is a great tool for attention direction control.  It inspires me to go back through some pix and try loose some of subject confusion and control eye darting over the pix.   

I can't imagine attempting to get this effect in a darkroom with film and paper. 


Thanks,  Dan     

[rayadagio]

@Dan: Very interesting image. Is this a real bone yard of mammoths? Where was the image taken? Shrinking effect worked well for me on first glance and faded a bit while looking longer at the image. Perhaps a smaller depth of field (especially in background) could intensify the effect.

@Rob: Thank you for the remark concerning perspective correction. Seems to be important. At least if the image was taken from the ground. I would not correct the lines if the image was taken from a higher position. The perspective tool is not bad. But sometimes my fine motoric skills do not suffice to get accurate results with this tool. Instead of this I often use ShiftN: http://www.marcus-hebel.de/foto/links.html. It's an ingenious freeware tool that performs very accurate automatic correction and rotation at the same time. Windows only, regrettably. But perhaps it runs under Wine (I haven't tried it so far).

Bert

[Dan]

@Ray.. It was taken in a place near Hot Springs, South Dakota.  They only let you walk around on a path high above the action, this provided the tilt I needed.  Apparently these Columbian Mammoths had found a sinkhole with water in it and couldn't climb out.  Columbian Mammoths are 3 times the size of Wooly Mammoths and this pit has the most found in one spot and they are in supurb condition.

  Thanks on the depth advice..  It's often so hard to feel for the fix..
I tried to do better here..
http://www.flickr.com/photos/29694527@N05/3405700374/
http://www.flickr.com/photos/29694527@N05/?saved=1

Dan

[monoceros84]

For the focusblur plugin under Linux the packages

libgtk2.0-dev
libgimp2.0-dev

are needed. Then just the usual "./configure - make - sudo make install" ritual.

Still can't get libgimp2.0-dev installed. It says that my other gimp packages are newer and won't work with the -dev from the repositories.
Are you running the newest GIMP version from getdeb.net?

[Rolf]

No, 2.6.1 from the repository. Was too lazy..... ;-)

[RobA]

I'm still playing with effects.

Here is my latest (click for larger)....
Original (cropped and scaled photo) I took:


And after processing:


The steps I used for this one were-
1) perspective correction (might have overdone it...)
2) vertical shrink to 80%
3) Duplicate the image, and run the g'mic toolbox patch based smoothing.
4) Duplicate the image, run an edge filter, then move that to a layer mask on (3)
5) Duplicate the image and threshold to only allow the highlights.
6) Blur the thresholded layer, then crank the gamma up, setting blend mode to screen (this gives glossy looking high light "pops")
7) New from Visible
Dial the saturation up
9) Build the depth map
10) Apply the focus blur plugin (I used a value of 15)
11) apply a sharpen to make the focussed objects a bit harsher looking (I used a value of 10)

-Rob A>

[Rolf]

100% Plastic! Whow!

[Dan]

Normally I don't like to just say GREAT, or WOW..or just accolades,  but I think you have really deserve it too on this one.

::Applause::


Dan