What Is a Tilt-Shift Effect?
Even if you haven’t heard the name tilt-shift, you will almost certainly have seen examples of such photos. Typically they show scenes, often shot a little from above, that has a shallow band in focus, with the rest of the image blurred. Our brains interpret these images as being photos of toy scenes because we have become conditioned that photos with such focused and blurred areas are in fact photos of toys. The tilt-shift effect is named after specialist tilt-shift lenses designed to allow their users to move the front element of the lens independently of the rest of the lens. Architectural photographers can use these lenses to reduce the visual effect of vertical lines of buildings converging as they get higher. However, because these lenses only focus sharply on a narrow band of the scene, they have also been used to create pictures that look like photos of toy scenes.
How to Make a Tilt-Shift Effect in GIMP
Here’s how to make a tilt-shift effect in GIMP: The first step is to go to Colors > Brightness-Contrast and tweak both sliders. The amount that you adjust these will be dependent on the photo that you’re using, but we increased both the Brightness and Contrast by 30. Select OK when set. You can either select the Duplicate layer button in the bottom bar of the layers palette or go to Layer > Duplicate Layer. Right-click on the Background copy layer in the Layers palette and select Add Layer Mask from the context menu that opens up. In the Add Layer Mask dialog, select White (full opacity) and select Add. You’ll now see a plain white mask icon in the Layers palette. The Blend tool options will now be visible below the Tools palette and in there, ensure that the Opacity slider is set to 100, the Gradient is FG to Transparent and the Shape is Linear. You should now have a reasonable tilt-shift effect, however, you may need to clean up the image a little if you have items in the foreground or background that are also in sharp focus. Select the Paintbrush tool in the Tools palette and in the Tool Options palette, ensure that Mode is set to Normal, select a soft brush (we chose 2. Hardness 050) and set the size as appropriate for the area that you’re going to be working on. Also, check that the foreground color is set to black.
