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?

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.

;-)

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. :-)

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

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.

wrote:
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

Fundamental misubnderstanding of out of focus areas.

First off, an image is a 2D rendering of a projection from a 3D world.

OOF areas can't be 'sharp' they are out of focus. They should ideally
be smooth and creamy. Many very sharp lenses render highlights in the
out-of-focus area harshly.

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

That's the main reason. Why add work in photoshop? It is difficult to
correctly seperate things that were close to the plane of focus in the
2D rendering of the 3D world... esp. as there is not necessarilly a good
contrast separation to make the job easy using the various tools.

single foreground object, PS allows for amazing control, etc. - far
more than a lens ever can.

Thoughts?

Wastes time doing things in photoshop since they can be avoided.

This is not the same as, for example, having a sharp lens and then
softening it in PS (or by using a Softar filter).

Cheers,
Alan

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.

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?

He has obviously not ever taken a serious try at it. First, it's one of
the most horribly tedious things to make a good selection in photoshop.
Then if you just apply a gaussian blur, it makes a glowing halo of the
subject's colors around it so you have to cut the subject to another
layer & paint in a matching background behind to avoid the halo.

--
Paul Furman
http://www.edgehill.net/1
san francisco native plants

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.

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.