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Why Fuss Over Lens Bokeh?
A buddy of mine posed an interesting question to me, and while I think I have some of the answer, thought I'd pose it to the group. Why is lens bokeh perceived as important in the digital world? His point was it's very easy to add almost any type/quality of blur using PS. He argues you should shoot sharper than ultimately needed and then add blur in post-processing. This gives you the ability to choose where the blur begins and how much you have and at what rate it changes using a layer mask with a gradient. He concedes that in some cases it can be hard to do in post processing because of complex foreground and background relationships, but in almost every case where there's a single foreground object, PS allows for amazing control, etc. - far more than a lens ever can. Thoughts? |
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#3
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Tony Polson wrote: If you think you can use Photoshop to reproduce the effect of smooth bokeh in a shot taken with a lens that has harsh bokeh, you have a promising career ahead of you ... ... selling snake oil. I wish you luck. Yeah, that was my point too. :-) |
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On Fri, 27 May 2005 18:36:37 +0100, Tony Polson wrote:
wrote: A buddy of mine posed an interesting question to me, and while I think I have some of the answer, thought I'd pose it to the group. Why is lens bokeh perceived as important in the digital world? His point was it's very easy to add almost any type/quality of blur using PS. He argues you should shoot sharper than ultimately needed and then add blur in post-processing. This gives you the ability to choose where the blur begins and how much you have and at what rate it changes using a layer mask with a gradient. He concedes that in some cases it can be hard to do in post processing because of complex foreground and background relationships, but in almost every case where there's a single foreground object, PS allows for amazing control, etc. - far more than a lens ever can. Thoughts? If you think you can use Photoshop to reproduce the effect of smooth bokeh in a shot taken with a lens that has harsh bokeh, you have a promising career ahead of you ... ... selling snake oil. I wish you luck. I guess he's suggesting you shoot everything hyperfocal at f/22 and fake the DOF blur in photoshop. Realistically, this approach will take forever, and look like crap. -- Owamanga! http://www.pbase.com/owamanga |
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Owamanga (not-this-bit) wrote: I guess he's suggesting you shoot everything hyperfocal at f/22 and fake the DOF blur in photoshop. Realistically, this approach will take forever, and look like crap. Right. Shoot sharp and then adjust the bokeh in post processing. His argument is that bokeh is something that is very well suited to post processing. But why do you say it'll look like crap? I would guess that PS can do blur better than any lens. Of course it'll be time consuming to do it on a shot by shot basis to say the least. |
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wrote:
Why is lens bokeh perceived as important in the digital world? For the same reason sharpness is perceived as important in the digital world. |
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wrote in message oups.com... A buddy of mine posed an interesting question to me, and while I think I have some of the answer, thought I'd pose it to the group. Why is lens bokeh perceived as important in the digital world? His point was it's very easy to add almost any type/quality of blur using PS. He argues you should shoot sharper than ultimately needed and then add blur in post-processing. This gives you the ability to choose where the blur begins and how much you have and at what rate it changes using a layer mask with a gradient. He concedes that in some cases it can be hard to do in post processing because of complex foreground and background relationships, but in almost every case where there's a single foreground object, PS allows for amazing control, etc. - far more than a lens ever can. Thoughts? Often when people say they have a friend who wants to ask a question, they are really protecting themselves - you, or your "friend" dont need to answer that. I've tried and _seen_ PS bokehs and they look horrible. If you have a link of a good one, I would be interested. The bokeh is also a function of aperture blade construction and hence it would be difficult to mimick this with say a gaussian blur. Some of us on this NG pay damn good money to have pictures with things as much out of focus as possible - strange isn't it? Musty. |
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Musty wrote: Often when people say they have a friend who wants to ask a question, they are really protecting themselves - you, or your "friend" dont need to answer that. Heh, actually we're having an ongoing email discussion about it in parallel with this thread. I just sent him a shot of a flower behind some foreground leaves and with other flowers and plants behind it taken at f/20. I'm also keeping another pic of the same scene to myself that I shot at f/2. He's gonna photoshop the f/20 one and then we'll compare. It'll be interesting. In any event, I'm not good enough with photoshop to do a good job at it. But he thinks he is. I've tried and _seen_ PS bokehs and they look horrible. If you have a link of a good one, I would be interested. The bokeh is also a function of aperture blade construction and hence it would be difficult to mimick this with say a gaussian blur. Some of us on this NG pay damn good money to have pictures with things as much out of focus as possible - strange isn't it? If his looks good, I'll post it. I told him that one requirement is that it must not look photoshopped. |
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