DOF PRO (Depth Of Field Generator PRO) is the undisputed leader in photorealistic depth of field effects for Adobe Photoshop. Backed by over a decade of research and development since its first release in 2005, DOF PRO has become the industry’s professional choice for unparalleled and sophisticated depth of field effects quickly and efficiently as a post process. DOF PRO’s state-of-the-art featureset provides innovative and cutting-edge technology not available elsewhere, resulting in one of the most powerful and advanced depth of field processors in the industry.
DOF PRO v5.0 GUI
Depth of field is the amount of distance between the nearest and furthest objects that appear in acceptably sharp focus as seen by a camera lens. This field varies with the focal length of the lens, its f-stop setting, and the object distance from the camera.
Depth of field is a critical component of camera lenses. It is heavily used in photography, film and computer graphics as a creative element, in typical examples ranging from portraiture to macro photography. Depth of field is governed by three factors: aperture, lens focal length and shooting distance. Many consumer class cameras, however, do not provide sufficient and independent control of these parameters. Digital cameras, in particular, usually show a wide depth of field – i.e. they are more tolerant to defocus effects. While this may be welcome in some instances (e.g. snapshot applications), it is often a serious deficiency in others (e.g. portraiture/macro photography).
DOF PRO Artists Left: Mark LaFrenais, Right: Adrian Jackson
In 3D computer graphics, physically accurate depth of field can be generated using complex raytracing techniques that tend to increase rendering times exponentially. As a result, 3D computer generated content often lacks depth of field as a consequence of the lengthy calculation times, or it is performed as a post-process using a specialized plugin such as DOF PRO.
DOF PRO Artists: Daniel Danrich
The term Bokeh, which in Japanese literally means blurring, has been introduced into the film, photography and computer graphics industries to describe these particular out-of-focus blur characteristics. It is determined mainly by the shape of the camera lens and can be best seen on out-of-focus highlights which assume the shape of the lens aperture. A lens with few aperture diaphragm blades, say 5, tends to produce pentagonal highlights, whereas a lens with more aperture blades, say 7-8, tends to produce rounder heptagonal/octagonal highlights. Ultimately, a higher number of aperture blades will produce more circular highlights.
DOF PRO features circular aperture shapes, polygonal aperture shapes ranging from 3 to 16 aperture blades, blade notching with variable notch scale and positive and negative notch angle, custom apertures that allows the loading of aperture maps, astigmatic featuring both sagittal and tangential astigmatism, aspect ratio selection including industry standard presets, optical vignetting (also known as Cat’s Eye) with vignette scale control, catadioptric (Mirror, Reflex) lenses, and much more.
DOF PRO features various modes of operation to suit virtually any requirement. In its most powerful mode, DOF PRO uses a specified depth map to derive an accurate depth of field effect. A depth map is a greyscale image where the grey level at any given point represents the distance of the object from the camera at the same point in the original image. Most 3D computer graphics applications are easily capable of producing depth maps along with the rendered image. For photographic images, the user can create the depth map manually which can be greatly facilitated through the use of the filter’s powerful built-in gradient features.
DOF PRO source image, Depth Map and rendered result
Why DOF PRO? Naturally occurring depth of field has extremely complex optical characteristics. It cannot be simply simulated through the use of a standard blur filter. Lens size, subject distance, aperture shape, lens curvature, film grain, spherical aberration, chromatic aberration, vignetting, transparency, light refraction, motion blur and much more must be taken into account in order to achieve an accurate and convincing depth of field effect. In addition, a capable depth of field filter must also provide additional features for dealing with unavoidable post-processing artefacts such as edge management controls, depth map aliasing tools, and highlight enhancement functions. DOF PRO carefully takes into consideration all of these aspects in order to produce the highest quality depth of field output possible.
DOF PRO Artists Left: Hatch Studios, Right: Redrover Studios
DOF PRO comes with an impressive featureset ready to meet today’s demanding creative industry requirements. Highlight preservation and bokeh visibility enhancement algorithms deliver cutting-edge output. Various automatic depth map generation and modification tools are available to assist artists in the creation of hand-made depth maps. Numerous aperture shapes are available (including the Cat’s Eye), each with the ability to control its size, angle, curvature and even aberration characteristics such as spherical and chromatic aberrations combined with edge offset, thickness and softness control. Custom aperture maps have been implemented in DOF PRO (along with a massive online aperture map library) allowing artists to create his or her own aperture shapes thus providing unlimited flexibility and control over the bokeh appearance. Support for depth maps through externally loaded files or embedded image channels allow DOF PRO to be easily integrated into your studio pipeline. Aspect ratios can be set to accommodate a wide variety of broadcast standards such as NTSC, PAL, IMAX, widescreen, anamorphic and more. A powerful noise generation engine has been developed to assist in the realistic simulation of today’s digital imaging pixel noise effects often present in both photographic and 3D raytraced images. The DOF PRO interface has been greatly improved and all effects now offer realtime visualization including a live aperture display and noise representation. The dialog can now be interactively resized thus allowing larger preview displays for high resolution monitors. The aperture size limit has been significantly extended to further assist high resolution print and film studio production houses. A highly advanced rendering console provides the artist with detailed status messages, concise progress meters and processing time-frames. Multicore rendering technology and gigabyte memory management boasts significantly improved performance. 8 bits / channel and 16 bits / channel color support is now available for professional high color workflows, especially crucial for photographers and retouchers. All of these code implementations produce depth of field camera effects that are extremely accurate and precise in simulating real-world phenomena.
DOF PRO offers fully adjustable aspect ratio features, allowing for precision matching to any existing film format. DOF PRO ships with presets for commonly used aspect ratios such as NTSC, PAL, IMAX, PARAMOUNT, WIDESCREEN, CINEMA, ANAMORPHIC and PANAVISION. In addition, a custom aspect ratio value can be entered for matching to non-standardized formats.
DOF PRO Aspect Ratio
Custom Aperture Maps
DOF PRO features the ability to load custom aperture maps thereby offering unlimited bokeh customization. Any bokeh can be cropped from any image, easily prepped and quickly loaded into DOF PRO. Additionally, the DOF PRO homepage provides a large database of custom aperture maps for quick and easy access.
DOF PRO can load custom aperture maps – Matthew Gunn
Custom aperture maps opens an entire new world of possibilities for creative aperture design where heart shaped apertures, for instance, can be easily created and applied to any image.
Depending on the shape of the aperture blades and the f-stop, blade notching may become visible. If the aperture is opened wide enough so that the ends of the blades come into view, notching will become apparent in the shape of the bokeh. The shape is dependent on the lens and how the blades have been designed.
Left: Lens with visible blade notching – Wikipedia, Right: DOF PRO blade notching
DOF PRO fully supports blade notching. The amount of blade notching is adjustable, as is the angle. The notching angle can be negative or positive, thereby providing the ability to match virtually any possible real-world blade notching example.
DOF PRO’s blade notching features are 100% integrated with all other features and will therefore work with any number of aperture blades specified and will respect all other features such as spherical and chromatic aberration, optical vignetting, etc.
Spherical Aberration is a common optical problem that occurs when light rays passing through the spherical lens ends up focusing at different points.
Spherical Aberration Diagram
DOF PRO fully supports spherical aberrations, a particular effect that occurs when an increased refraction of light strikes the lens edge as opposed to the center. While a perfect lens focuses all incoming rays to a point on the optical axis, a real lens with spherical surfaces suffers from spherical aberration: it focuses rays more tightly if they enter further from the optical axis than if they enter closer to the axis, thereby not producing a perfect focal point. When the focus is closer to the lens than the axial focus, it is called over-corrected spherical aberration and is often exhibited by a brighter halo around the focus point. Conversely, when the focus is located further than the axial focus, it is called under-corrected spherical aberration and is often exhibited by a brighter core and faint halo around the focus point.
Focused beam with Left: Negative Spherical Aberration, Center: None Spherical Aberration, Right: Positive Spherical Aberration – Wikipedia
Spherical aberration is widely seen in photography and is inherent in all kinds of aperture shapes, including circular, polygonal, vignetted and notched. Spherical aberration will vary from over-corrected to under-corrected when in front of the focal plane vs the back.
DOF PRO can handle positive and negative spherical aberration for any of the predefined aperture shapes. It supports aberration scale and offset in order to achieve precise and stunningly realistic bokeh effects. DOF PRO also provides an impressive and unique feature that allows the use of positive or negative spherical aberration for foreground bokeh and its inverse spherical aberration for background bokeh, thereby differentiating between foreground and background bokeh, and simulating exactly how a real lens behaves (see Spherical Aberration in Front vs Back Bokeh).
Left: DOF PRO without spherical aberration, Right: DOF PRO with positive spherical aberration
Spherical Aberration in Front vs Back Bokeh
Due to the nature of spherical aberration, bokeh are influenced differently in front of the focal plane vs behind the focal plane. Since the wavelengths traverse the focal point and flip, the spherical aberration also inverses. If a bokeh is under-corrected in front of the focal plane, it will be over-corrected behind it. Likewise, if a bokeh is over-corrected in front of the focal plane, it will be under-corrected behind it. DOF PRO takes this into account and correctly handles spherical aberration differently in front of the focal plane than behind the focal plane.
Real-world example of under-corrected bokeh on the front of focal plane vs over-corrected bokeh in back of focal plane
DOF PRO example of under-corrected bokeh on the front of focal plane vs over-corrected bokeh in back of focal plane
Left: DOF PRO without spherical aberration front vs back bokeh differentiation, Right: DOF PRO with spherical aberration front vs back bokeh differentiation
Additionally, this feature can be easily disabled so as to feature the same spherical aberration in front and behind the focal plane.
Chromatic Aberration is the result of the inability of a lens to focus all wavelengths to the same convergent point. The result is visible red, green and blue color fringing. Chromatic aberration can occur longitudinally, laterally or both.
In many instances, color fringing isn’t caused by the lens but rather by the sensor’s inability to correctly capture high-contrast areas. This is why it is often seen on the edges of intense white.
Longitudinal (axial) Chromatic Aberration Diagram
Lateral (transverse) Chromatic Aberration Diagram
Longitudinal and lateral chromatic aberration of a lens is seen as ‘fringes’ of color around the subject since each color in the optical spectrum cannot be focused at a single point on the optical axis.
DOF PRO fully supports both longitudinal (axial) and lateral (transverse) chromatic aberration, a unique effect caused by a lens having a different refractive index for different wavelengths of light.
DOF PRO allows both types of chromatic aberration to be used independently or together, just like real-world chromatic aberration phenomena. Chromatic aberration can be applied positively or negatively, thereby providing full control over the effect. DOF PRO also provides an impressive and unique feature that allows the use of positive or negative chromatic aberration for foreground bokeh and its inverse for background bokeh, thereby differentiating between foreground and background bokeh, and simulating exactly how a real lens behaves. DOF PRO’s chromatic aberration features produce spectacular optical imperfections rarely seen in any commercial depth of field filter.
Left: DOF PRO Longitudinal Chromatic Aberration, Right: DOF PRO Lateral Chromatic Aberration
Achromatic Aberration
Achromatic Aberration is the result of using an achromatic lens to focus two of the three (typically red and blue) wavelengths to the same convergent point. This minimizes the effects of chromatic aberration. Because the red and blue wavelengths are corrected, the result is visible magenta and green color fringing. Achromatic aberration can occur longitudinally, laterally or both.
The most common type of achromat is the achromatic doublet, which is composed of two individual lenses made from glasses with different amounts of dispersion. One element is usually a concave (negative) element constructed from flint glass which tends to have relatively high dispersion values. The other is a convex (positive) element made of crown glass, which has lower dispersion. Both lens elements are mounted beside each other and shaped so that the chromatic aberration of one is counterbalanced by that of the other.
Longitudinal and lateral achromatic aberration of a lens is seen as ‘fringes’ of magenta and green color around the subject since each color in the optical spectrum cannot be focused at a single point on the optical axis. In many instances, color fringing isn’t caused by the lens but rather by the sensor’s inability to correctly capture high-contrast areas. This is why it is often seen on the edges of intense white.
DOF PRO fully supports both longitudinal (axial) and lateral (transverse) achromatic aberration.
DOF PRO allows both types of achromatic aberration to be used independently or together, just like real-world achromatic aberration phenomena. Achromatic aberration can be applied positively or negatively, thereby providing full control over the effect. DOF PRO also provides an impressive and unique feature that allows the use of positive or negative achromatic aberration for foreground bokeh and its inverse for background bokeh, thereby differentiating between foreground and background bokeh, and simulating exactly how a real lens behaves (See Longitudinal Chromatic / Achromatic Aberration in Front vs Back Bokeh).
DOF PRO’s achromatic aberration features produce spectacular optical imperfections rarely seen in any commercial DOF filter.
Left: DOF PRO Longitudinal Achromatic Aberration, Right: DOF PRO Lateral Achromatic Aberration
Longitudinal Chromatic / Achromatic Aberration in Front vs Back Bokeh
Just like spherical aberration, chromatic and achromatic aberration are also influenced differently in front of the focal plane vs behind the focal plane. Since the wavelengths traverse the focal point and flip, the color fringing also inverses. DOF PRO takes this into account and correctly handles chromatic / achromatic aberration differently in front of the focal plane than behind the focal plane.
Real-world example of achromatic aberration influencing front vs back bokeh differently – Todd Vorenkamp
Left: DOF PRO without chromatic aberration front vs back bokeh differentiation, Right: DOF PRO with chromatic aberration front vs back bokeh differentiation
Additionally, this feature can be easily disabled so as to feature the same chromatic / achromatic aberration in front and behind the focal plane.
DOF PRO achromatic aberration with front vs back bokeh differentiation – Richard Rosenman (Source image: Jamesbondwatches.com)
Optical Vignetting (Cat’s Eye)
Optical Vignetting, also known as Cat’s Eye, is the result of when obliquely incident light is confronted with a smaller lens opening than light approaching the lens head-on. Aperture shapes take on the shape of the oblique opening which results in a bokeh shaped similar to that of a cat’s eye.
Optical Vignetting Diagram
The white openings in the example below illustrate how and why optical vignetting occurs. In the f/5.6 lenses, the aperture is small enough that when light enters it is unobstructed by the lens barrel. Therefore, obliquely incident light sees the same aperture as normally incident light. In the f/1.4 lenses, the entry pupil is partially shielded by the lens barrel; the rims of the front element and rear element. As a result, less light enters for off-axis points than for on-axis points thereby shaping the bokeh into a cat’s eye.
Optical Vignetting as seen through the aperture
Optical vignetting tends to be stronger in wide angle lenses and large aperture lenses, but it can also be seen with most photographic lenses. Zoom lenses also tend to produce a fair amount of optical vignetting.
DOF PRO fully supports optical vignetting. Because the shape of an out-of-focus highlight mimics the shape of the clear aperture, an increasing distance from the optical axis results in out-of-focus highlights progressively narrowing and beginning to resemble a cat’s eye. The larger the distance from the image center, the narrower the cat’s eye becomes.
Left: DOF PRO circular aperture without optical vignetting, Right: DOF PRO circular aperture with optical vignetting
DOF PRO features positive and negative optical vignetting, complete with intensity control. While optical vignetting is usually positive, DOF PRO provides negative optical vignetting to mimic the optical vignetting produced by mirrors in catadioptric lenses (See Catadioptric Lens).
Left: Real-world optical vignetting with Canon EF100mm f2.8 Macro USM – Jon Mitchell, Right: DOF PRO Optical Vignetting
Although polygonal bokeh optical vignetting is rare, it does occur in some instances. The example below on the top left panel shows real-world optical vignetting on a circular bokeh as it increasingly approaches the frame edge. On the bottom left you can see the DOF PRO generated bokeh – almost a perfect match. The example below on the top right panel shows real-world optical vignetting on a polygonal bokeh as it increasingly approaches the frame edge. On the bottom right you can see the DOF PRO generated bokeh – again, almost a perfect match.
Left: Real-world circular optical vignetting vs DOF PRO, Right: Real-world polygonal optical vignetting vs DOF PRO
Optical vignetting produces a symmetrical cat’s eye shape only if the aperture size is relatively the same size as the lens barrel. However, when a small aperture becomes affected by a lens barrel much larger than its size, certain characteristics take hold. The vignetting, instead of starting from the center, will start much closer to the frame edge, thereby revealing cat’s eye bokeh only near the edge and unaffected bokeh in the middle. Additionally, the occluded part of the bokeh will have a straighter edge due to the larger lens barrel occlusion shape.
Left: Real-world example of small aperture with large aperture optical vignetting – Ntscha, Right: DOF PRO generated bokeh with optical vignetting scale
These subtle but crucial characteristics resulted in DOF PRO’s optical vignetting scale feature that allows for the adjustment of optical vignetting size. Together with optical vignetting intensity, DOF PRO can produce virtually any type of real-world optical vignetting effect found in film and photography.
DOF PRO’s optical vignetting scale feature
Tilt-Shift
Tilt-Shift lenses allow lens movement. The rotation of the lens plane relative to the image plane is called tilt while the movement of the lens parallel to the image plane is called shift. Tilt is used to control the orientation of the plane of focus whereas shift is used to adjust the position of the subject in the image area without moving the camera back.
Tilt Diagram
Shift Diagram
Tilt-shift lenses were popularized due to their unique effect of making subjects appear miniaturized in wide shots. However, lenses are expensive and many of these effects are now being done digitally with specialized software, such as DOF PRO.
DOF PRO fully supports tilt photography using the built-in linear gradient. Position, brightness, contrast, rotation and gamma provide total control over the degree of tilt. An invert toggle even allows for negative tilt resulting in defocusing in the center with sharp details at the edges.
Left: DOF PRO no tilt, Right: DOF PRO tilt
DOF PRO Tilt-Shift – Richard Rosenman (Source image: Pixabay.com)
Field Curvature
Field Curvature (also known as Petzval Field Curvature) is the result of a lens focusing oblique rays slightly in front of the sensor thereby yielding a curved image. Since lenses are curved and sensors are flat, there will always be some degree of aberration in this field.
Field Curvature Diagram
There are curved sensors that have been developed such as the Kepler Space Laboratory Image Array Sensor which compensates for field curvature. Conversely, there are lenses, such as the Petzval lens which deliberately produces field curvature.
Field curvature always reveals itself as a progressive defocus increasing from the center of the image. Field curvature is very closely related to astigmatism.
DOF PRO fully supports field curvature using the built-in radial gradient. Position, brightness, contrast, and gamma provide total control over the degree of field curvature. An invert toggle even allows for negative field curvature resulting in defocusing in the center with sharp details at the corners.
Left: DOF PRO no field curvature, Right: DOF PRO field curvature
Astigmatism
Astigmatism is the result of a lens not focusing on the same point in tangential and sagittal orientations. Astigmatism never occurs in the center of an image but rather towards the edge of the image, depending on whether it is tangential or sagittal. Astigmatism can be decreased by stopping down.
Astigmatism Diagram
Tangential astigmatism creates a defocus effect similar to a spin blur, while sagittal astigmatism creates a defocus effect similar to a zoom blur.
DOF PRO fully supports both tangential and sagittal astigmatism, complete with intensity control.
Left: DOF PRO tangential astigmatism, Right: DOF PRO sagittal astigmatism
Catadioptric Lens
Catadioptric lenses, also known as Mirror Lenses or Reflex Lenses, combine refraction and reflection in an optical system through the use of lenses (dioptrics) and curved mirrors (catoptrics).
Catadioptric Lens Diagram
Catadioptric lenses can feature focal lengths from 250 mm up to and beyond 1000 mm that are much shorter and compact than their long focus or telephoto counterparts. Additionally, chromatic aberration, a major problem with long refractive lenses, and off-axis aberration, a major problem with reflective telescopes, is almost completely eliminated by the catadioptric system.
Catadioptric Lenses – Wikipedia
The drawback with catadioptric lenses is that they produce donut-shaped bokeh due to the obstruction from the secondary mirror. This is unique to these types of lenses.
Several companies produced catadioptric lenses throughout the later part of the 20th century such as Nikon, Canon, Tamron, Samyang, Vivitar, and Opteka. Sony also produced a catadioptric lens that had the distinction of being the only reflex lens manufactured by a major brand to feature auto-focus.
DOF PRO fully supports catadioptric lenses, with the ability to adjust the secondary mirror size. In addition, the use of negative optical vignetting allows catadioptric bokeh to realistically occlude as they approach image corners, thereby behaving exactly like a real catadioptric lens does.
Left: Real-world catadioptric lens – Kamen Kunchev, Right: DOF PRO catadioptric lens with optical vignetting
Edges
Any post depth of field processor will produce artefacts. This is because parts of the image that require defocusing need to have missing information reconstructed and, since that image is two-dimensional, this missing information needs to be guessed.
Additionally, a side effect of computer generated depth maps is that they are antialiased. Unfortunately, this yields incorrect information as the antialised edges imply that that any given object lies on multiple focus planes. Paradoxically, an aliased depth map will produce hard edges against an antialiased image.
Left: DOF PRO without edge management, Right: DOF PRO with edge management
DOF PRO gets around this by providing tools to take an antialiased depth map, and alias it. An edge selection tool is then used to specify an edge tolerance followed by a blur tool that is used to soften the image edge. After extensive research, this treatment was found to produce the best results with minimal image quality degradation.
Highlights
DOF PRO provides sophisticated highlight enhancement tools, critical to producing bright, sharp and vivid bokeh. Due to the limited dynamic range of images, highlights are usually clipped as a trade-off to a reasonable overall exposure. When highlights are out of focus, this truncated light intensity may be restored using these tools as the light is distributed over a larger area.
Left: DOF PRO without highlight enhancement, Right: DOF PRO with highlight enhancement – Wallpapersafari.com
DOF PRO offers total control over highlights by specifying a threshold that determines the onset of highlights. Image areas with brightness values above this threshold will be enhanced in order to restore their original (unclipped) brightness. Moreover, DOF PRO offers tinting and saturation controls for unparalleled highlight adjustment.
Aperture Textures
DOF PRO introduces a killer new feature called Aperture Textures. Given enough time, dirt and dust accumulate on the front and rear element of the camera. Although not immediately visible in photographs, this noticeably reveals itself in the bright bokeh. In keeping with photorealistic depth of field phenomena, DOF PRO has implemented such features. Any image map can now be used as an aperture texture. Furthermore, since DOF PRO uses aperture textures from image channels, multiple textures can be stored and easily selected.
DOF PRO aperture textures allow the use of any image to be used as a bokeh texture
Even the smallest particles of dust and dirt on the camera element will reveal themselves in bright bokeh.
Once the aperture texture is specified, it can be inverted and the intensity can be adjusted. Sampling controls allow for speed over quality or vice-versa. DOF PRO aperture textures also provide an offsetting feature that allows the texture to be offset according to on-screen bokeh position much like a real camera does.
Left: DOF PRO Aperture Texture without offsetting, Right: DOF PRO Aperture Texture with offsetting
DOF PRO introduces a new feature called matte box. A matte box is a device mounted on the end of a lens to block outside light in order to prevent glare and lens flare. Matte box and a lens hood are essentially the same thing but a matte box uses adjustable fins called French flags. A lens hood also tends to be circular (Conical lens hood) although there are semi-square shaped ones too (Chopped petal lens hood).
Matte boxes, lens hoods and any other mounts in front of the lens may affect the image. Although in most cases there is no visible interference, bokeh are often more susceptible to these devices. The french flags will often crop the bokeh, depending on the angle of the flag. Even mirror boxes when used with heavy depth of field can affect bokeh. This is especially evident in anamorphic bokeh.
DOF PRO’s matte box affects bokeh exactly the same way real matte boxes do. They increasingly crop bokeh as they near image edges. Each individual top, bottom, left and right fins has its own slider for 100% creative control over the cropping. DOF PRO’s matte box is for those looking to match exactly how real bokeh are influenced under these real-world conditions. It is also ideal for matching plates not otherwise possible with any other depth of field processor.
Left: DOF PRO left & right matte box flags, Right: DOF PRO top & bottom matte box flags
Noise
DOF PRO includes an extremely powerful pixel noise rendering engine for producing even more realistic depth of field effects. Noise is an inherent naturally-occurring byproduct of most 3D raytraced engines and digital CCD cameras. The re-introduction of noise in defocused image areas is crucial in producing a realistic depth of field effect as this is almost entirely eliminated through the processing. This is often difficult to achieve due to varying degrees of defocusing throughout the image which therefore requires varying degrees of pixel noise.
DOF PRO provides sophisticated noise tools for dealing with this. Noise can be applied in an animated or non-animated fashion and in monochromatic or color. It can be applied uniformly, photometrically (luma-sensitive), and can be distributed in a fixed manner, or even through the use of the focus map or blur amount which effectively allows the user to recover lost grain of varying intensity. The noise can be tinted in color and a realtime GUI window displays a preview of your currently selected noise attributes. DOF PRO’s powerful noise rendering engine takes your images from a realistic to a photorealistic level.
DOF PRO Artists: Tom Larson
Photometric Burnout
Photometric Burnout is a specific effect that occurs when a subject is photographed in front of an intense backlight (natural or artificial). This produces overexposed image areas in which the subject appears to be silhouetted against the background and its edges become corroded and contracted. Burnouts are quite different than blurs because the corroded edges of the subject(s) remain sharp and faithfully represent the camera’s aperture shape. Since DOF PRO uses optically-correct depth of field algorithms, photometric burnouts can be easily simulated with virtually no setup time involved.
DOF PRO photometric burnout
Additionally, photometric burnout creates high-contrast boundaries which are particularly difficult for sensors to capture correctly, and often result in visible color fringing. This too can be easily replicated through the use of DOF PRO’s chromatic and achromatic aberration features.
DOF PRO recognizes that the beauty is in the details and that’s why a new region rendering system has been implemented into its core rendering technology. Region render allows the artist to focus only on a specific area of the image for a faster and more thorough workflow.
Region rendering is very easy to use in DOF PRO. Simply adjust the size by dragging the corners and move the region by dragging the edges. Region rendering has become a standard-issue speed optimization technology in all 3D applications and it is with great pride that DOF PRO can now offer it as well.
DOF PRO is a production tested plugin currently being used by customers worldwide demanding the very best in depth of field effects. Users range from digital artists and photographers to major broadcast, film and print production studios. DOF PRO has been developed with quality output being the number one priority – to produce the most sophisticated and photorealistic depth of field effects possible as a post process thus providing a faster alternative to computationally-intensive traditional 3D raytracing techniques. For photographers and retouchers, it is an alternative to already-captured photography lacking sufficient depth of field, or for those wishing to emphasize it further. It has been developed closely with users and production studios in an effort to meet the digital community’s creative demands. DOF PRO has been reviewed by numerous publishers world-wide, always receiving outstanding reviews, honorary mentions and feature publications. Most important of all, DOF PRO has become the chosen tool for uncompromised, photorealistic depth of field effects.
DOF PRO operates by applying photorealistic depth of field based on a depth map. A depth map is a grayscale image that describes the distance of every object in the image from the camera. Based on this distance, DOF PRO analyses the image information and processes an accurate depth of field effect.
Depth maps are very easy to produce from just about any 3D software including 3ds Max, Maya Blender, Lightwave, Modo, etc. For photography, depth maps need to be created manually although DOF PRO’s built-in gradient tools can suffice in most cases. Manually creating a depth map is fairly straight forward through the use of Photoshop’s lasso tool and requires the selection of every object in the scene and assigning a solid greyscale level relating to its depth in the scene. In most cases, only two or three levels of depth need to be dealt with.
Although DOF PRO provides unparalleled output, like all post depth of field processors it cannot compete against a true raytracer. 3D generated depth of field will always yield superior results to any and all post depth of field processors as raytracers have access to the entire scene, thereby being able to correctly render in front and behind defocused objects. Post depth of field processors rely on a 2D depth map and must, to some degree, guess missing information in front and behind defocused objects. As a result, DOF PRO should be thought of as a faster alternative to computationally intensive 3D depth of field, not a replacement for it.
Having said that, DOF PRO can produce photorealistic depth of field effects in literally seconds whereas 3D generated depth of field typically takes hours, sometimes days. As with everything, it is ultimately a balance between speed and quality.
There are many cases in which a post depth of field processor can produce almost identical results to that of a 3D raytracer. In other cases, those that involve fine details such as thin focused objects over heavily defocused backgrounds or vice versa, artefacts may become present. Therefore, the output of any post depth of field processor is partially dependent on the scene.
For Photography, DOF PRO is an asset for images shot that require additional depth of field. Once again, output will depend on the scene and / or the depth map.
There will be instances in which an image will contain a fully-sharp foreground element against a defocused background element. While the typical workflow will be to composite the elements together and apply DOF PRO to the entire image, a cleaner alternative is to apply DOF PRO to the background only and then composite the fully-sharp foreground element, or vice-versa. This will ensure the image remains artefact-free.
Antialiasing on depth maps actually yields incorrect results. The shaded antialiased edge suggests multiple depth planes for that particular object. On the other hand, aliased depth maps tend to produce aliased edges in the processed image. If you encounter visible artifacts around edges, it is recommended to generate an unfiltered depth map using your 3D app of choice.
A linear gradient for a depth map will suffice for 90% of all cases and it should be used whenever possible. This will produce an accurate depth of field effect, with minimal artefacts, similar to a real-world camera and its focal plane.
It’s easy to get carried away with unnecessarily adding too much depth of field. Therefore, it’s helpful to first research reference imagery so as to have an idea of how much depth of field is acceptable and how much is too much.
Depth map antialiasing, which can produce artefacts (See Edges), becomes less noticeable as image resolution increases.
The interface can be dynamically resized to fit any single or dual monitor setup thereby providing a much larger preview window if desired.
If an external depth map is loaded, DOF PRO will automatically reload it upon new filter invocation. However, custom aperture maps must be reloaded every new filter invocation.
The Graphical User Interface (GUI) is structured into groups of controls which belong to a logical unit. Individual controls or entire control groups may be enabled or disabled, depending on the settings of other controls.
Richard Rosenman
Performance
DOF PRO performs some very complex calculations that may affect performance. Having a clear understanding of its operation will ensure you get the most out of the software. The following are helpful tips that can help you optimize DOF PRO for speed.
DOF PRO has been developed to work intelligently. It bypasses algorithms not required when they are set to 0 (off), thereby speeding up processing. For instance, setting astigmatism to a value of less than or greater than 0 will enable the astigmatism algorithm which may increase rendering times. Most features in DOF PRO work this way. Aperture texture set to disabled will bypass that algorithm. Matte box set to 0 (off) in any direction will bypass that specific algorithm. Switching to polygonal aperture shape will enable additional blade algorithms.
Enabling longitudinal or lateral chromatic or achromatic aberration from the default state of 0 (off), will switch to a more complex algorithm. Since chromatic and achromatic aberration is calculated in a physically-correct manner, additional passes need to be performed for the red, green and blue wavelengths. This means that chromatic and achromatic aberration require 3X the number of computations than non-chromatic and non-achromatic calculations.
Astigmatism can increase rendertimes extensively depending on the amount specified. As such, it should be use with care.
Fixed defocus depth map mode demands the most performance of all depth map states. This is because all other depth maps will vary depth of field levels up to the currently-specified size whereas fixed defocus will always perform only at the currently-specified size.
DOF PRO performs a number of pre-processing & analytical passes on the depth map. As such, you may experience a slight delay before processing begins when using large images.
When working with highlights, set the highlight view from View Rendered to View Processed. This will only perform depth of field for highlights as opposed to every single pixel resulting in a significantly faster render.
Use the region renderer to work on specific image areas up close. This will speed up rendering significantly as it will only render the specified area.
Setting the preview undersampling to something lower than 1:1 for previews will speed up rendering by that respective factor.
Decreasing the preview window size will exponentially decrease render time.
The aperture preview displays an approximation when displaying chromatic or achromatic aberration effects.
DOF PRO is capable of working in 8 bits / channel and 16 bits / channel color modes. However, depth maps are always handled internally at 8 bits / channel.
DOF PRO is fully multithreaded and will take advantage of as many workstation cores made available to it.
Depth
This section contains all the controls related to the image’s depth map information. Generally speaking, the depth map information determines the amount of blur applied to a particular region of the image. DOF PRO provides a rich feature set of tools in order to non-destructively modify the depth map.
It is important to recognize the difference between a depth map and a focus map. They are not the same. A depth map contains information regarding the location of objects within the scene. A focus map contains information regarding the focal point of the camera. It is not recommended that you use a focus map as your depth map because this will confuse DOF PRO since there are two depth map branches.
Left: Depth Map, Right: Focus Map
A correct depth map should contain white foreground objects transitioning to black background objects and the focus should be set within DOF PRO using the Focal Depth slider. For instance, if you wish to have a distant object in focus, you would not generate a black to white depth map. Instead, you would generate a standard white to black depth map, and then set the focal depth controller (F-Depth) within the filter from 255 to 0. This will effectively change the focal point from the foreground to the background, as seen by clicking on the View Focus button.
A focus map, depending on its settings, may have two branches – in front of the focal plane and behind the focal plane. This is important as DOF PRO provides specialized features for dealing with front bokeh differently than back bokeh, much like a real camera does (See Spherical Aberration and Chromatic Aberration).
Mode: Specifies the mode of operation of the filter. The following modes are available:
Fixed Defocus: Applies a uniform blur to the entire image. This is the simplest but slowest of all modes. It can be useful for background images or for applying a fixed defocus to a background layer that will later be composited with focused elements.
Linear Gradient: Provides a simple depth model based on a linear gradient, assuming objects in white to be closest. For many landscape images, this option may be a reasonable choice in absence of an appropriate depth map. This depth mode is one of the most useful and can be effective for almost all cases. Much like real depth of field, this mode features a focal plane.
Radial Gradient: Provides a focal point with a gradually increasing blur as you move away from that point. This option may be a reasonable choice for portraiture applications. Unlike real depth of field, this mode features a focal circle instead of a plane and is closer to mimicking field curvature.
Depth Map: Provides depth of field based on an externally loaded depth map.
Image Channel: Provides depth of field based on an embedded image channel depth map. This option becomes available only if embedded image channels are found. To learn how to use image channel depth maps, please review the Aperture Texture section as that too, uses image channels.
DOF PRO Depth Modes – Left: Linear gradient, Middle: Radial gradient, Right: Depth map
Load Depth Map: Opens a host dialog to select and load the depth map. If the depth map has been loaded successfully its filename will be displayed. If a depth map has been loaded, it will automatically be reloaded upon the next filter invocation in the current session. DOF PRO currently supports the uncompressed 8 bits / channel BMP file format for externally loaded depth maps. For obvious reasons, a loaded depth map must be the same resolution as the current image. If there is a resolution mismatch, an error will be displayed.
Invert: The default assumption is that black areas in the depth map represent distant objects while white areas represent close objects. Use the invert option if the depth map is the other way around, or if you want the depth map reversed. Note that the result will be inconsistent if the depth order is wrong. This control will be disabled in Fixed Defocus mode as there will be no depth map present.
View Depth: Displays the depth model used; bright for close objects, dark for distant objects. Disabled in Fixed Defocus mode.
View Focus: Displays a focus map. White represents objects in focus, black represents objects completely out of focus, gray in between. click in the preview window to interactively set the focal depth or adjust it with the focal depth slider. Disabled in Fixed Defocus mode.
Overlay: Overlays the currently selected focus depth map over the source image as a representation of the focus.
Stretch: Stretches the imported depth map range to full coverage, from 0 to 255. In some cases, the depth map ranges set in the 3D app may not have encompassed the complete depth of the 3D scene resulting in a depth map of white to gray, gray to black, gray to gray, etc. Toggling this feature will take the levels and scale them to the full range of white to black for maximum coverage within DOF PRO.
DOF PRO stretch depth map
Clamp/Scale (toggle): Clamps the currently selected Depth Map with the specified upper and lower range colors.
Clamp/Scale (toggle): Scales the currently selected Depth Map to the range specified by the upper and lower range colors.
Upper and Lower Range Colors: Specifies the upper and lower range colors for clamp / scale feature.
Focal Depth: Slider to adjust the focal depth to a particular grey level of the depth model used (Linear Gradient or Depth Map). Use this to shift the focus from one object to another. Interactive clicking in the preview window will also set this. Disabled in Fixed Defocus and Radial Gradient modes.
Brightness: Controls the brightness of the currently selected Depth Map. Disabled in Fixed Defocus mode.
Contrast: Controls the contrast of the currently selected Depth Map. Disabled in Fixed Defocus mode.
Gamma: Controls the gamma of the currently selected Depth Map. Disabled in Fixed Defocus mode.
Rotation: Controls the rotation of the currently selected Depth Map. Disabled in Fixed Defocus, Depth Map and Radial Gradient modes.
Reset: Resets the depth parameters to default settings.
Richard Rosenman
Aperture
This section defines the size and shape of the aperture (i.e. the amount and look of defocus). A small amount of defocus is typically sufficient for most cases. Higher values may result in unrealistic depth of field and significantly longer processing times.
Shape: Lets you select the aperture shape from circular, polygonal, notched and custom. The number of aperture blades in a lens typically defines the look of the highlight. A lens with few aperture diaphragm blades, say 5, tends to produce pentagonal highlights, whereas a lens with more aperture blades, say 7-8, tends to produce rounder heptagonal/octagonal highlights. Ultimately, a higher number of aperture blades will produce more circular highlights.
DOF PRO aperture shapes with various settings
Aspect: Lets you select the aspect ratio for various standards such as PAL, NTSC, IMAX, PARAMOUNT, WIDESCREEN, CINEMA, ANAMORPHIC, PANAVISION and custom. If matching bokeh to a photographic or film plate, it’s critical to match the aspect ratio.
DOF PRO features common industry standard aspect ratios and custom ones too
Custom Aspect: Allows the entry of a custom aperture value, when Custom Aspect is selected.
Reset: Resets the aperture parameters to default settings.
Load Custom Shape: Allows the loading of an externally created aperture map. This option will only be enabled when Custom has been selected as the aperture shape. Custom aperture maps have a limited number of options available to them. Custom aperture maps must be in 8 or 24 bit uncompressed BMP format, at a fixed resolution of 256×256. 8 bit BMP depth maps and aperture maps with palettes not set to 256-color grayscale may not load properly. The custom aperture maps must be reloaded every filter invocation.
DOF PRO allows custom aperture maps to be loaded – Matthew Gunn
Size: Specifies the aperture size. The value corresponds to the radius in pixels at maximum out-of-focus. This slider controls the amount of defocus. Naturally occurring depth of field is, in most cases, subtle. It is important to keep this in mind as it is a natural tendency to apply more than is necessary, which will directly affect the rendertime and produce unrealistic results.
0-225: Toggles the range of the aperture size from 0 to 225. This is useful for print and film production in which high resolution renders are required with increased depth of field. Additionally, when the focus map has a very subtle range, this feature may be useful as depth of field tends to be minimal. When selected, the Size slider will turn orange as higher values may result in significantly longer processing times.
Blades: Specifies the number of aperture blades for polygonal apertures. This slider is disabled if Circular or Custom aperture is selected as aperture shape.
DOF PRO aperture blades
Angle: Specifies the aperture orientation. Moving from 0 to 100 covers all orientations without multiples. For example, a full scale (100) rotates a hexagon by 60 degrees. If Custom is selected, the value 0-100 will cover 360 degrees. This slider is disabled if Circular aperture is selected as aperture shape.
Curve: Allows you to specify blade curvature. 0 corresponds to straight lines, -100 results in concave lines and 100 results in convex lines. This slider is disabled if Circular or Custom aperture is selected as aperture shape.
DOF PRO aperture curve
Notch Angle: Specifies the angle for blade notching. This slider is disabled if Circular or Custom aperture is selected as aperture shape.
DOF PRO notch angle
Notch Scale: Specifies the size for blade notching. This slider is disabled if Circular or Custom aperture is selected as aperture shape.
DOF PRO notch scale
Spherical Aberration: Controls the light distribution across the aperture. Positive values will result in an over-corrected bokeh (halo effect) while negative values will result in an under-corrected bokeh (core effect). Spherical Aberration occurs when an increased refraction of light strikes the lens edge as opposed to the center.
DOF PRO spherical aberration
+ | -: Factors front and back bokeh into the spherical aberration algorithm. In real optical systems, if an over-corrected bokeh appears in front of the focus plane, the inverse under-corrected bokeh will appear behind the focus plane, and vice versa. Enabling this feature will force DOF PRO to behave exactly like a real optical system. Disabling this will force DOF PRO to use the currently-specified spherical aberration for the front and back bokeh, regardless of the focus plane position.
DOF PRO example of under-corrected bokeh on the front of focal plane vs over-corrected bokeh in back of focal plane
Spherical Aberration Scale: Controls the size of the spherical aberration.
DOF PRO spherical aberration scale
Spherical Aberration Offset: Controls the offset of the spherical aberration.
DOF PRO spherical aberration offset
Softness: Controls the edge softness of the bokeh.
DOF PRO softness
Optical Vignetting: Controls the amount of positive or negative optical vignetting. This control effectively controls the cat’s eye occlusion. It should always be used in the positive range to mimic real-world optical vignetting caused by the lens hood. However, a negative option has also been provided for the use of Catadioptric Lenses which feature negative optical vignetting due to occlusion from the secondary mirror.
DOF PRO optical vignetting
Optical Vignetting Scale: A symmetrical Cat’s Eye bokeh only occurs when the aperture opening is relatively the same size as the lens hood. However, there are times when the scale difference between the two is substantial and this results in optical vignetting occurring only closer to the frame edge with a straighter occlusion line due to the larger occlusion object. Optical Vignetting Scale will adjust the scale of the occlusion object so as to behave correctly under these certain circumstances.
Chromatic Aberration Mode: Specifies whether to use chromatic or achromatic aberration. Chromatic aberration results from a lens’s inability to focus red, green and blue wavelengths together on a convergent point. This results in red, green and blue color fringing. Achromatic aberration focuses the red and blue wavelengths together on a convergent point. This results in magenta and green color fringing.
Left: DOF PRO chromatic aberration mode, Right: DOF PRO achromatic aberration mode
Reset: Resets the chromatic aberration parameters to default settings.
Longitudinal Chromatic / Achromatic Aberration: Specifies the amount of longitudinal chromatic / achromatic aberration. In the case of chromatic aberration, positive values will displace blue wavelengths outward and red wavelength inwards while negative values will produce the reverse. In the case of achromatic aberration, positive values will displace green wavelengths outward and red and blue wavelengths inward while negative values will produce the reverse.
DOF PRO longitudinal chromatic aberration
DOF PRO longitudinal achromatic aberration
+ | -: Factors front and back bokeh into the longitudinal chromatic aberration algorithm. In real optical systems, if a positive chromatic aberration bokeh appears in front of the focus plane, the inverse negative chromatic aberration bokeh will appear behind the focus plane, and vice versa. Enabling this feature will force DOF PRO to behave exactly like a real optical system. Disabling this will force DOF PRO to use the currently-specified chromatic aberration for the front and back bokeh, regardless of the focus plane position.
Left: DOF PRO without chromatic aberration front vs back bokeh differentiation, Right: DOF PRO with chromatic aberration front vs back bokeh differentiation
DOF PRO achromatic aberration with front vs back bokeh differentiation – Richard Rosenman (Image source: Jamesbondwatches.com)
Lateral Chromatic / Achromatic Aberration: Specifies the amount of lateral chromatic / achromatic aberration. In the case of chromatic aberration, positive values will displace blue wavelengths outward and red wavelength inwards while negative values will produce the reverse. In the case of achromatic aberration, positive values will displace green wavelengths outward and red and blue wavelengths inward while negative values will produce the reverse.
DOF PRO Lateral chromatic aberration
DOF PRO lateral achromatic aberration
Catadioptric Lens: Forces DOF PRO to behave similarly to a catadioptric (mirror, reflex) lens. Catadioptric lenses use mirrors to reduce physical size but due to the secondary mirror, donut-shaped bokeh are produced. Negative optical vignetting should be used when using the catadioptric lens so as to simulate real-world secondary mirror occlusion.
DOF PRO catadioptric lens
Catadioptric Scale: Adjusts the catadioptric lens secondary mirror size.
DOF PRO catadioptric lens secondary mirror scale
Richard Rosenman
Edges
This is an advanced and optional section for reducing and eliminating possible artifacts at the edges of focused and defocused objects. Such artifacts may occur when using antialiased depth maps or when the difference in focus between two overlapping objects is severe. Antialiasing on depth maps actually yields incorrect results. The shaded antialised edge suggests multiple depth planes for that particular object. On the other hand, aliased depth maps tend to produce aliased edges in the processed image. If you encounter visible artifacts around edges, it is recommended to remove the antialiasing from the depth map using these tools and, if necessary, slightly blur the image at the edges of the depth map using the following controls.
Left: DOF PRO without edge management, Right: DOF PRO with edge management
DOF PRO’s edge management features can take an antialiased depth map, and alias it. An edge selection tool is then used to specify an edge tolerance followed by a blur tool that is used to soften the image edge. After various tests, this treatment was found to produce the best results at a minimum cost of image quality loss.
The controls in this section are only enabled in Depth Map and Image Channel mode.
Alias Depth Map: Option to remove antialiasing from depth map. Since most computer graphics applications antialias depth maps by default, DOF PRO provides an aliasing operator.
View: Displays edges in the depth map according the Threshold setting. This identifies critical areas which may need slight blurring.
Threshold: Specifies a threshold for edge detection in the depth map.
Blur Image Edge: Controls the amount of blur applied to the processed image at the edges of the depth map.
Reset: Resets the Edges parameters to default settings.
Highlights
This control group deals with highlight management. Highlights are the single most important component in producing beautiful, sophisticated and realistic depth of field. Due to the limited dynamic range of the image, highlights are usually clipped as a trade-off to a reasonable overall exposure. When highlights are out of focus, this truncated light intensity may be restored using these tools as the light is distributed over a larger area.
When working with highlights, set the highlight view from View Rendered to View Processed. This will only perform depth of field for highlights as opposed to every single pixel resulting in a significantly faster render.
Bokeh effects work best on small, bright highlights. If the highlight is too large, the bokeh effect will get lost within it and it will not be as clearly visible. To enhance the bokeh effects, work with the Highlight Enhancement tool by adjusting the Threshold and Enhancement settings until you achieve the desired result. Be careful when increasing the Enhancement controller as values too high can result in aliased highlights.
Left: DOF PRO without highlight enhancement, Right: DOF PRO with highlight enhancement – Wallpapersafari.com
View Rendered: Displays the final rendered frame, with composited highlights.
View Selected: Displays the selected highlights only. The rest of the image below the threshold cutoff will not be displayed. Note that white areas (RGB = (255,255,255)) are always fully selected while darker areas are gradually less selected according to the threshold slider value.
View Processed: Displays the processed highlights only. The rest of the image below the threshold cutoff will not be displayed. This option is very useful for faster preview of the bokeh highlights.
Left: DOF PRO view rendered highlights, Middle: DOF PRO view selected highlights, Right: DOF PRO view processed highlights
Lower Threshold: Determines the lower threshold for onset of highlights. Image areas with brightness values between the lower and upper thresholds will be enhanced in order to restore their original (unclipped) brightness. When using 32 bit color depth (floating point), values larger than 255 (100% brightness) are permitted. As a result, this slider allows larger values than 255 (100% brightness) so as to be able to select floating point values greater than 1.0.
Upper Threshold: Determines the upper threshold for onset of highlights. Image areas with brightness values between the lower and upper thresholds will be enhanced in order to restore their original (unclipped) brightness. When using 32 bit color depth (floating point), values larger than 255 (100% brightness) are permitted. As a result, this slider allows larger values than 255 (100% brightness) so as to be able to select floating point values greater than 1.0.
DOF PRO highlight threshold controls the onset for highlight enhancement
Softness: Softens the selection relative to the brightest value.
Enhancement: Controls the amount of enhancement. Careful adjustment is recommended, as too high values will result in white and aliased highlights.
DOF PRO highlight enhancement
Saturation: Controls the amount of saturation enhancement. Highlight saturation works in conjunction with highlight enhancement so that as the highlight is increasingly brightened, the color will be increasingly saturated.
Tint Color: Specifies a highlight tint color. This may be useful to restore color information which has been clipped away in the image. The default color is set to white which contains the original highlight color information. Highlight tinting works in conjunction with highlight enhancement so that as the highlight is increasingly brightened, the tint color will be increasingly applied.
Reset: Resets the Highlights parameters to default settings.
When multiple highlights become defocused and overlap they can quickly overexpose to white. This is true in both real-world and computer-generated depth of field. However, there are many factors that can decrease the exposure of the bokeh including F-Stop, camera exposure, and post-processing. A bokeh intensity should never be brighter than the overall image exposure. Below are various examples of real-world depth of field where the bokeh intensity doesn’t reach 100% brightness.
Real-world highlight exposure – Pixabay & Pexels
To achieve this effect, highlights can be enhanced in DOF PRO and then clamped using any standard curves tool available in most graphics applications. The example below shows the original image on the left, the DOF PRO processed image in the middle with enhanced highlights, and the clamped highlights image on the right processed with Photoshop curves. The result is more natural looking highlights for some instances.
Highlight Clamping – Pixabay
Hatch Studios
Aperture Texture
DOF PRO provides a unique feature that allows the use of custom aperture maps as aperture textures. This allows for ultra-realistic bokeh rendering and can easily mimic dirt on the front and rear camera element, a side-effect often revealed in bokeh.
DOF PRO aperture textures allow the use of any image to be used as a bokeh texture
DOF PRO uses custom aperture textures stored as image channels. The benefits of this is that the textures can be stored and saved with the image provided a file format capable of storing these channels such as PSD, TGA, TIFF, etc is used. Another benefit is that multiple channels can be stored using particular file formats such as PSD, allowing the image to carry multiple aperture textures from which DOF PRO can choose from. Aperture textures are stored as grayscale maps which is ideal since the illumination of them depends on the source image highlight colors, not the texture itself.
DOF PRO uses bilinear filtering as its default algorithm for all aperture texture transformations, so as to provide speed. However, none of the conventional filtering algorithms will produce acceptable results when performing significant scaling transformations to any image. If an aperture texture has a resolution of 1080×1080 and the largest target bokeh size will be 10 pixels, that is a 99% scale reduction. In cases like these, box filtering is the only algorithm that produces a good results but it is extremely slow.
When such significant scaling transformations occur, aliasing may become visible. The greater the scale ratio, the more likely aliasing will occur. As a result, there are steps a user can take so as to minimize the degree of aliasing. By performing a simple blur operation beforehand on the aperture texture, we can produce the same effect as a box filter. The greater the degree of scale, the greater the amount of blur to be applied. Below is an exaggerated but helpful example.
In the upper row we see the original aperture texture, followed by the same one unfiltered. The reduced aperture texture shows slight aliasing in the bokeh. In the lower row, we see the original aperture texture, followed by the same one with a blur filter applied to it. The reduced aperture texture now displays correctly and without signs of aliasing. The closer in size the aperture texture is to the resulting bokeh size, the less likely aliasing will occur.
DOF PRO aperture texture filtering
To use a custom aperture texture or image channel depth map please follow the steps outlined below:
Ensure that your working layer is the base background layer in Photoshop. If not, you will need to flatten your layer into the background layer.
Click on the image channels.
Click on the top, right-hand corner to create a new channel.
A new channel prompt will appear. Click ok to create the new channel.
A new channel will appear in the channels list.
Copy and paste the lens texture into this new channel. Repeat above two steps for multiple lens textures.
Using the shift key, select all the channels and launch DOF PRO.
The Aperture Texture dropdown will now list any and all accessible aperture textures added, allowing the selection from the list. The aperture texture will be visible in the aperture preview.
Texture: Enables and specifies which aperture texture to use.
View: Displays the currently selected aperture texture.
Sampling: Specifies what type of sampling to use for the aperture texture remapping. Bilinear is a good compromise between quality and speed. Bicubic is the slowest but best quality.
Intensity: Specifies the intensity of the aperture texture.
Invert: Inverts the aperture texture. The aperture texture, when composited on the bokeh, should be predominantly white with dark details, not the other way around.
Scale: Specifies the scale of the aperture texture. Due to the extreme downscaling of the aperture texture to fit within a small bokeh, aliasing may present itself. The scaling feature can be used to scale the texture up so as to view details clearly and minimize aliasing.
Offset: Offsets the texture according to on-screen bokeh position much like a real camera does.
Left: DOF PRO Aperture Texture without offsetting, Right: DOF PRO Aperture Texture with offsetting
Reset: Resets the aperture texture parameters to default settings.
Richard Rosenman
Matte Box
DOF PRO offers a new matte box feature. A matte box is a device used on the end of a lens to block the sun or other light source in order to prevent glare and lens flare. It performs essentially the same function as a lens hood and also mounts in front of the lens, but usually includes adjustable fins called French flags.
Left: Example of a matte box with fins (french flags)
Left: Real-world left fin matte box influence on lights, Right: Real-world bottom fin matte box influence on lights
Although matte boxes don’t typically affect the recorded image, they produce a particular effect on bokeh which results in an increasingly noticeable clipping, depending on which fins are being used. In extreme cases of depth of field, the camera’s own mirror box has even been known to produce this effect.
Left: DOF PRO left & right matte box flags, Right: DOF PRO top & bottom matte box flags
Top: Controls the top matte box fin visibility.
Bottom: Controls the bottom matte box fin visibility.
Left: Controls the left matte box fin visibility.
Right: Controls the right matte box fin visibility.
Reset: Resets the matte box parameters to default settings.
Noise
DOF PRO supports an extremely powerful noise rendering engine. This engine offers the capability to reintroduce crucial lost noise in the defocused areas. A gradient strip is provided to show the selected grain characteristics.
Real depth of field is unaffected by noise. Defocused areas will maintain the same amount of noise as focused areas. As a result, digitally defocused areas must also retain their original noise levels in order to present a realistic result. Since defocusing is performed by complex focus map levels, it is impossible to manually reintroduce noise. DOF PRO’s noise engine uses the focus map to accurately reintroduce noise where the defocusing process has removed it.
Animated: Specifies randomized noise generation for each update.
Monochromatic: Specifies monochromatic noise. Otherwise red, green and blue channels will each receive independent noise.
Left: DOF PRO monochromatic noise, Right: DOF PRO RGB noise
Distribution Modes: Two drop-down boxes are provided to specify the way how noise is applied to the image. The following options are available:
Uniform: Applies the same amount of noise to each pixel.
Photometric: Applies more noise to darker pixels than to brighter pixels. This resembles the behavior of digital camera sensors.
Fixed: Generates spatially-independent noise.
Focus Map: Yields Focus Map controlled noise, i.e. no noise in focus area, with gradually increasing noise for out-of-focus regions.
Blur Amount: Similar but not identical to the Focus Map option. Use the Blur Amount mode to recover noise lost by defocus amount.
Left: DOF PRO uniform noise, Right: DOF PRO photometric noise
Left: DOF PRO noise by focus map, Right: DOF PRO noise by blur amount
Tint Color: Provides an option to add colored noise.
Amount: Specifies the amount of noise to reintroduce.
Reset: Resets the noise parameters to default settings.
Rendering Console
This control group deals with rendering statistics. Because DOF PRO performs some very complex calculations, rendering may take time. As a result, a great deal of effort has been placed into providing a powerful and robust rendering system that offers the user speed optimization options and detailed status messaging of exactly what is occurring at every stage of the operation and processing.
Progress: Indicates the currently processed percentage of the preview.
Status: Indicates what controller is currently being used, what operation is currently being performed, or what errors, if any, have been encountered.
Time: Displays the total time elapsed for the last render.
Update: Enables the preview window. Sometimes multiple controllers need to be adjusted. Instead of changing one at a time and waiting for each render to complete, it may be advantageous to temporarily disable the preview, make multiple changes, and re-enable it.
Preview: The undersampling feature controls the undersampling resolution of the render. This can significantly increase the rendering speed by processing only every 1st, 2nd, 3rd, 4th, or 5th line only. Make sure to switch it back to 1:1 before applying your final result. The zoom buttons will display the preview in various scaled up or down resolutions for faster previewing. The 100% button will force the preview window to display at full resolution. The Fit button will force the preview window to fit the entire image in the preview window.
Region Render Color: Specifies the region render gizmo color. The region render gizmo will always render within its extents. For longer renders, it is useful to resize the gizmo and focus solely on specific parts of the image that require finetuning. Clicking on OK will render the entire image, regardless of the gizmo’s extents. The region render is an extremely powerful and time-saving tool when used effectively.
Center (Render Region): Centers the render region gizmo to the preview.
-: Halves the size of the render region gizmo.
Reset To Preview: Sets the region render gizmo to full preview extents. If an image is larger than the preview window, this will set the extents to the preview edges, allowing the selection and resizing of it.
Reset To Image: Sets the region render gizmo to full image extents. If an image is larger than the preview window, this will set the extents to the image edges. This means it will not be immediately visible unless the preview is scrolled to the image edges.
Draw: Clicking on this button, immediately followed by clicking and dragging the mouse in the preview window, allows one to draw the render region gizmo.
Aperture: This is an approximate visual representation of the currently selected aperture shape. It is important to understand that it approximates chromatic and achromatic aberration for speed purposes. To see what the actual effect will truly look like, select View Rendered from the highlights group.
Hatch Studios
Changelog
v1.0 – First release
v1.1 – Fixed file access crashing bug in Windows 10
v1.1 – Implemented preview window zoom feature
v1.2 – Implemented autoload depth map feature on filter invocation
v1.5 – New and improved Highlight preservation algorithm
v1.5 – New and improved Bokeh visibility algorithm
v2.0 – Implemented full batch / animation capabilities
v3.0 – Implemented common image file formats
v3.0 – Implemented custom aperture maps
v3.0 – Implemented spherical aberration
v3.0 – Implemented full feature grain rendering engine
v3.0 – Implemented full keyframing support for all sliders
v3.0.73 – Accept image files and depth maps with embedded alpha channels
v3.0.73 – 169 frame batch processing error fixed
v3.0.78 – Windows Vista compatibility
v4.0.28 – Multithreading capabilities implemented
v4.0.28 – 3GB RAM under 32bit Windows, 4GB RAM under 64bit Windows
This section focuses on 3D computer generated imagery with depth of field generated using DOF PRO. In most cases, a computer generated depth map will have been used to calculate the depth of field. Enjoy browsing through the gallery of insanely talented artists and designers and if you would like to submit your won DOF PRO work, please email it.
Got any high-quality work created with DOF PRO? We are currently updating the galleries so please email us your work to have it featured!
This section focuses on 2D photographic imagery with depth of field generated using DOF PRO. In most cases, DOF PRO’s linear and gradient tools were used for the depth of field calculation. None of these images had any depth of field in their starting form and the originals can be seen by clicking on the credit information.
Got any high-quality work created with DOF PRO? We are currently updating the galleries so please email us your work to have it featured!
The following table compares DOF PRO’s features to those of Photoshop CS6 and its Lens Blur filter. More importantly, scroll to the bottom for a detailed visual comparison breakdown.
DOF PRO
Lens Blur
Linear Gradient
X
(Tilt-Shift Filter)
Radial Gradient
X
(Iris Blur Filter)
Internal Depth Maps
X
X
External Depth Maps
X
Invert Depth Map
X
X
View Depth Map
X
View Focus Map
X
Overlay Focus Map
X
Stretch Depth Map
X
Clamp Depth Map
X
Stretch / Clamp Dpeth Map Range
X
Focal Depth Adjustment
X
X
Depth Map Brightness Adjustment
X
Depth Map Contrast Adjustment
X
Depth Map Gamma Adjustment
X
Depth Map Rotation Adjustment
X
X
Circular Aperture Shape
X
Polygonal Aperture Shape
X
X
Custom Aperture Shape
X
Aspect Ratio
X
Custom Aspect Ratio
X
Aperture Size
X
X
Aperture Extended Size Range
X
Aperture Blades
3-16
3-8
Aperture Angle
X
X
Aperture Curvature
X
X
Aperture Blade Notching
X
Aperture Blade Notching Angle
X
Aperture Spherical Aberration
X
Aperture Spherical Aberration Scale
X
Aperture Spherical Aberration Offset
X
Front vs Back Spherical Aberration Differentiation
X
Aperture Softness
X
Aperture Optical Vignetting (Cat’s Eye)
X
Aperture Optical Vignetting Scale
X
Aperture Astigmatism
X
Aperture Chromatic / Achromatic Mode
X
Aperture Longitudinal Chromatic Aberration
X
Aperture Transverse Chromatic Aberration
X
Aperture Longitudinal Achromatic Aberration
X
Aperture Transverse Achromatic Aberration
X
Front vs Back Chromatic Aberration Differentiation
X
Front vs Back Achromatic Aberration Differentiation
X
Catadioptric Lens
X
Catadioptric Lens Scale
X
Depth Map Aliasing
X
Depth Map Aliasing Threshold
X
Depth Map Aliasing Blur
X
Depth Map Aliasing View
X
View Rendered / Selected / Processed Highlights
X
Highlight Threshold
X
X
Highlight Enhancement
X
X
Highlight Saturation
X
Aperture Textures
X
Aperture Texture Sampling
X
Aperture Texture Intensity
X
Aperture Texture Scale
X
Aperture Texture Offset
X
Aperture Texture Inversion
X
Aperture Texture View
X
Matte Box
X
Noise Recovery
X
X
Animated Noise
X
X
Static Noise
X
Color Noise
X
X
Monochromatic Noise
X
X
Photometric Noise
X
Noise by Focus Map
X
X
Noise by Blur Amount
X
Noise Tinting
X
Noise Preview
X
Rendering Progress
X
X
Rendering Time
X
Rendering Undersampling
X
Region Rendering
X
Aperture Preview
X
Quality Comparison
Despite DOF PRO’s massive featureset, the real difference shines through in quality. Photoshop’s Lens Blur suffers from some very serious deficiencies including blurry bokeh, dim bokeh, incorrect defocusing and aliased artefacts. In both cases the highlights were enhanced but Photoshop’s remained blurry. The following is a detailed comparison in output between DOF PRO and Lens Blur.
Top: DOF PRO, Bottom: Lens Blur
Possibly the most significant difference is when the focus shift is changed to something other than default. In such cases, Photoshop’s Lens Blur filter completely falls apart producing totally incorrect results. Foreground objects that should be defocused are affected only within the depth map boundaries thereby revealing a sharp edge and producing extremely unrealistic results.
Top: DOF PRO, Bottom: Lens Blur
The following image is a direct comparison between DOF PRO and real-world depth of field. In the case of the cars, the built-in linear gradient was used and in the case of the glasses, a depth map was created. The results are virtually identical, highlighting DOF PRO’s photorealistic output.
The following aperture map library has been developed exclusively for DOF PRO customers. If you are a DOF PRO customer and wish to use these, simply right-click on any aperture map and save it to your computer. Please review the terms and conditions.
The following videos provide tutorials for DOF PRO v5.0.
Installing this software is easy and only requires three simple steps:
1 – Download the software by clicking on the Download Demo button located above on the software page. This will prompt you to save a .zip file on your computer.
2 – Extract the contents from the .zip file and place the .8bf file into your host’s plugin folder. For instance, to install for Adobe Photoshop CS6, place the .8bf file into the location shown below. You can make a sub-folder to keep your plugins organized, such as the one below. Please make sure 64 bit plugins such as these are placed in the corresponding 64 bit Adobe Photoshop plugin folder.
If you’re using Photoshop CC (eg. version 2013 – 2019 or later), your Photoshop plug-ins are stored in a folder shared between all Photoshop CC versions shown below.
3 – Launch Adobe Photoshop, open an image and click on Filter > Richard Rosenman > Filter Name. If the filter is grayed out, it may not support your current image color depth.
If you have purchased a commercial license, please review the activation section.
If you have purchased a commercial license, you must activate your software. You can manually activate your software at any time by logging into your account. Activating this software is easy and only requires five simple steps:
1 – Log into your account by clicking on the Account button in the top menu.
2 – Click on VIEW to display the order details containing the product you wish to activate.
3 – Enter your request code and click GENERATE LICENSE. Please see below for info on how to retrieve your request code.
Your request code can be found by clicking on the help button of the installed software.
4 – A file prompt will ask you to save the license file. You must save this license file in the same folder the plugin resides in. Below is an example for Photoshop CS6.
If you’re using Photoshop CC (eg. version 2013 – 2019 or later), your Photoshop plug-ins are stored in a folder shared between all Photoshop CC versions shown below.
5 – Relaunch Adobe Photoshop, open an image and click on Filter > Richard Rosenman > Filter Name. If the filter is grayed out, it may not support your current image color depth.
In the titlebar, your software should now display REGISTERED. It is now unlocked and ready for use.
This software is compatible with the following OS:
Windows 10 Home 64 bit
Windows 10 Pro 64 bit
Windows 10 Enterprise 64 bit
Windows 10 Education 64 bit
Windows 8 64 bit
Windows 8 Pro 64 bit
Windows 8 Enterprise 64 bit
Windows 7 Home Basic 64 bit
Windows 7 Home Premium 64 bit
Windows 7 Professional 64 bit
Windows 7 Enterprise 64 bit
Windows 7 Ultimate 64 bit
Windows Vista Home Premium 64 bit
Windows Vista Business 64 bit
Windows Vista Enterprise 64 bit
Windows Vista Ultimate 64 bit
Windows XP 64 bit
Windows XP Professional 64 bit
This software is compatible with the following hosts:
Any host capable of running Adobe Photoshop 64 bit compliant plugins
Adobe Photoshop (Version CS5 or higher, including CC) 64 bit
Adobe Photoshop Elements (Version 13 or higher, including CC) 64 bit
Adobe Illustrator (Version CS6 or higher, including CC) 64 bit
Computerinsel Photoline 64 (Version 16 or higher) 64 bit
CorelDRAW (Version X6 or higher) 64 bit
Corel Painter (Version 12.1 or higher) 64 bit
Corel Paint Shop Pro (Version X6 or higher) 64 bit
