Tilt and shift in Photoshop

Have you seen images that look like pictures of models, very shallow depth of field over a plane of focus that might be on a diagonal. In the long distant past when we used view cameras, the type that looked like the things the Victorians used in the early years of photography, we were able to create this by tilting and shifting both the lens plane and film plane. Now my old Sinar 5 x 4 gathers dust in it’s box, probably never to be used again, but the images I used to make can be recreated using Photoshop. Here are some examples of what I am talking about

I have played with this for years and find the model like qualities beguiling, it seems to work most effectively where the subject is shot from above, my aerial pictures are perfect for that, but you do not need to be in a plane to get similar results. You can also use it in portraits, not for the model effect but just to create a difference, this picture from yesterday’s excellent tutorial from photo.tuts on headshot photography, just altered using tilt and shift

If you would like to have some fun trying this on your pictures I have found a good video tutorial that explains it in simple detail

 

You might also like to take our Photoshop course, the next one starts on 4th May