Tilt-Shift / Miniature Effect
Tilt-shift mimics the shallow depth-of-field of a macro shot, which tricks the eye into seeing a tiny model instead of a real-life scene. This tool takes any photo and blends a sharp focus band with a heavily blurred top and bottom (or left/right), plus a saturation boost on the in-focus area for the candy-bright look that sells the illusion. All adjustments — band position, band width, falloff distance, blur radius, saturation, orientation — are sliders with a live preview, and the export is a clean PNG without the guide overlay.
How to use
- Drop a high-angle photo (cityscape, market, sports field, train station — anything shot from above works best).
- Move the band center where you want the sharp area, narrow the band width, and push blur to taste.
- Tick 'Show band guides' to see the boundaries while tuning, then download — the guide is automatically hidden in the exported PNG.
Frequently asked questions
- Why does it look fake on photos shot from eye level?
- Tilt-shift sells 'tiny model' because real macro photography has shallow depth-of-field — the brain interprets shallow DOF as 'object is small and close'. Photos shot at eye-level already match how our brain expects normal-scale scenes, so adding shallow DOF feels artificial rather than miniature-y. Top-down or high-angle photos work way better.
- What does the saturation boost do?
- Real miniatures are painted with vivid pigments and lit hard, producing punchy colors. Boosting saturation 15-40% in the focus band mimics that look. Set to 100% to disable, push past 150% for a stylized 'plastic toy' vibe.
- Falloff vs band width — what's the difference?
- Band width is the size of the fully-sharp region. Falloff is the distance over which sharpness transitions to full blur on each side. Wide band + narrow falloff gives a hard cut (more graphic); narrow band + wide falloff gives a smooth gradient (more dreamy).
- Vertical orientation — when is that useful?
- Portrait orientation works for street scenes shot from a balcony where the depth axis runs left-right, or for product photos where the focus is on a vertical strip down the center. Most landscape tilt-shift looks use horizontal.
Related tools
Image Vignette Generator
Add a soft radial vignette to any photo — adjustable amount, softness, radius, oval / circle / rectangle shape, dark or light, any color. 100% in your browser, no upload.
Image Duotone Effect
Apply a two-color duotone effect to any image — pick a shadow color and a highlight color, adjust midpoint and contrast, download the result. Spotify-style covers in two clicks.
Doppler Effect Calculator
Calculate the frequency an observer hears when a source or observer moves — set the emitted frequency, wave speed and each speed and direction to get the shifted frequency and wavelength.
Image Sharpen (Unsharp Mask)
Sharpen any photo or screenshot in your browser using the unsharp-mask algorithm — three sliders (amount, radius, threshold), four presets (subtle → extreme), live before/after comparison, and PNG download. Nothing is uploaded.
Image Halftone Generator (Newspaper Dot Effect)
Convert any image to a classic halftone pattern using variable-sized dots, squares, diamonds or lines on a rotated grid — the technique offset litho and newspaper presses have used since the 1880s to render continuous tone with a single ink.
Image Posterize
Reduce a photo to N levels per channel for that flat poster-art look, with optional Floyd-Steinberg dithering and per-channel level control.