"Miniaturizing" buildings

[crewchief]

This might be really old hat to you pros, but a friend of mine just showed me this trick and if anybody hasn't seen it, it's pretty interesting. Simply by blurring the focus around the edges of an aerial photo you can make it look like a miniature building for a model train set or something. This is really easy in Picasa; they have a soft focus function that does exactly that. You just have to play around with the settings a little until you create the illusion.

[SeaHawk]

that trick's new too me. Cool effect.

[Hogster]

Enjoy the pictures!

http://www.rcgroups.com/forums/showthread.php?t=616600


David

[AZ ChopperCam]

take it a step further and composite your "miniature" into a real scene to really make it appear as a model.

I shot these houses in Tucson last August.

[furyphoto]

I have been a professional photographer for 15 years, and I have never seen this, It's a pretty neat effect. If only I can think of an angle to market it!

In case you are wondering, here's why it works...

Landscapes, and aerials are usually photographed with a wide angle lens (we all have one for our camera ship don't we?) Miniatures however need to be shot with a macro lens of some sort. By their nature, the two lenses produce very different looks. The wide angle lens had a large depth of field (even at a wide aperture), where a macro lens has a very small depth of field (even at a small aperture).

We are so used to seeing landscapes that are in focus from near to far, and close up photos with out of focus foregrounds and backgrounds that when we manipulate one to the other we fool out eyes (or brain really) into thinking we are looking at something else.

My favorite part about this effect is that it is photography, and the nature of the equipment that has conditioned our minds to think this way. It looks like a miniature, because that's what every photo of a miniature we have ever seen looks like. If you have never seen one, it would just look like a house. Without a history of photographs in our minds the effect would not work. Neat huh?

[Hogster]

Originally Posted by N74DV

take it a step further and composite your "miniature" into a real scene to really make it appear as a model.

I shot these houses in Tucson last August.

That's fantastic DJ!!! I've never thought of taking it that step further ....


David

[Brady Longmore]

That's an interesting effect. I'm going to have to play around in photoshop with that. Thanks for posting.

[rroback]

Although the miniturizing is fun, it's usually too different to be useful for our clients. However, if you've got a house that's in a crowded area, or doesn't stand out, a very minimal blurring of the other houses ( almost as if you just had a narrow dof) can really make it pop. Has worked for me on a few beach houses I've done...

[jeffreyscholl]

Miniature Ski Resort...



Cheers,
Jeff