How to underline the depth of field

Hi,

Depth of field is one of the artistic possibility for composing photos. It's one of my favorite - besides dreaming buttery bokeh :-) For sure, great lenses witth large aperture help, but sometimes post processing would still be required to make a photo even better. Thus I would like to share a technique to boost the depth of field effect even more by utilizing the easy-to-use brightness gradient feature of PhotoPerfect.

To call up the brightness gradient feature, open the picture and choose "Effects / Brightness Gradient". The brightness gradient dialog box will appear.



Next, position the gradient arrow and increase brightness of the foreground

Move the gradient arrow to a position similar to the one shown in the example. The arrowhead should be pointing upwards (1). Decrease the value of brightness to -256 and increase saturation to 143 using the sliders at the right side of the dialog box (2). Click on "Accept" (3) to save.



Now brighten up the foreground by moving the gradient arrow to its new position with the arrowhead pointing downwards (1). Increase the value of brightness to 220 and saturation to 80 (2). Click on "Accept" to save your changes (3).



Then accentuatre the foreground a bit more:

Select the "S-contrast-gradient" tab (1) at the bottom of the dialog box. The gradient arrow should be pointing downwards (2). Increase the value of s-contrast to 0,90 and saturation to 112 (3). Click on "Accept" to save the changes.



Next the sky should get its boost:

Within the "S-contrast-gradient" dialog box move the gradient arrow so that it points upwards (1). Increase the value of s-contrast to 0,50 (2). Click on "Accept" to save your changes.



The lighting is however still too even/flat. So just select "Brightness gradient" and add a gradient to the forground:

Re-Select the "Brightness gradient" tab (1) at the bottom of the dialog box. Move the gradient arrow to a position with the arrowhead pointing to the lower left corner (2) and set the brightness to -130 (3). Click "Accept" to save the changes. By doing this step, you increase the 3-D perception of the picture and making it more interesting.



The next step is optional. In this case I chose to intensify the focus a bit:

Select the "Sharpness gradient" tab (1) at the bottom of the dialog box. The gradient arrow should be pointing to the right (2). Increase the value of the slider to 100 (3). Click on "Accept" to save your changes.



That's it. Now the final result framed with Master Framer Deluxe:



In total it took about 6 minutes to do this. Thanks for reading.

Cheers

Hoang-Tran