Photoshop Tutorial: Tilt-shift Miniature Faking

Hello fellow photo editors! Today we’re going to learn how to make everything in your picture look like it’s teeny-tiny by simulating the extremely short focal plane that macro photography creates. It’s fake tilt-shift photography.

Tilt-shift is actually kind of a misnomer for this, however, as tilt-shift lenses don’t quite get this same kind of effect. Thanks wikipedia!

This is just a fun, quirky edit and works great for outdoor sporting events, parking lots, city-scapes and countrysides alike. Miniature cows? Hilarious… So let’s get down to it, shall we?

1. Load the original image and press “Q” for quickmask mode. 

2. Select the Gradient tool, and make sure “Reflected Gradient” is selected (it looks like a sideways tube – see screenshot.) Press “D” to make sure that black is your foreground color and white is your background color.

3. Click right where you want the image to be the sharpest and drag it up (or down, or sideways, depending on the angle of the shot), while holding shift to keep the line straight. Drag the line so it’s about half as tall (or wide) as the image and let go to watch the red mask fill in around your fake focal plane.

4. Press “Q” again to exit quick mask mode. 

5. Use Filter > Blur > Lens Blur to create a nice blur. I set the shape to Octagon, radius to 25 and everything else to zero, and it looks pretty good.

Doesn’t that look nifty? Play with it a bit, you’ll find that some things look way better than others. People look pretty funny, like lego people or something. Stay tuned for more – I’ve got all sorts of goodies coming up soon for you !