Tilt-Shift / Miniature Effect
Image
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.
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