Introducing "Focal Point"

[jchunn]

This plugin is a part of the "Jesse Chunn Plugin Pack" and can be downloaded Here

This plugin is my favorite of all that I've created so far.

Settings:

Focus Area Size:

The diameter of a circle that will NOT be blurred, centered around the "Focal Point".

Blur Factor:

The amount of the blur outside the "Focus Area". The blur will increase the further it gets from "Focal Point". Setting this to a high number slows down the rendering, so leave it at a lower setting until you have the other settings where you want them.

Blur Limit:

Sets a maximum blur to improve performance with little or no quality degradation.

Focal Point:

The center point of the area that will remain "in focus".

Quality:

1=low

2=medium

3=high

For best performance, leave quality at 1 until you have other settings where you want them, then increase the quality once you are ready for a final render.

Here are some examples:

Original:

Drawing attention to a central figure:

Drawing attention to a background figure:

Enjoy,

Jesse Chunn

[MadJik]

This one remembers me the gradient blur:

It's not the same result...

[barkbark00]

This would be nice if you used Paint.NET's unfocus blur for the blurring action.

[jchunn]

This would be nice if you used Paint.NET's unfocus blur for the blurring action.

The problem there is the "progressive" blur. The further you are from the focal point, the more intense the blur. The whole challenge was to avoid having an obvious line where the blur starts. I tried to accompish the effect just using the built in effects without much luck (possible but very, very difficult), so I built the plugin.

I will be looking at ways to improve the blur and speed of the effect, and I will look at how the "unfocus blur" works to see if I can mimic it.

Thanks for the feedback.

[Ash]

This would be nice if you used Paint.NET's unfocus blur for the blurring action.

The problem there is the "progressive" blur. The further you are from the focal point, the more intense the blur. The whole challenge was to avoid having an obvious line where the blur starts. I tried to accompish the effect just using the built in effects without much luck (possible but very, very difficult), so I built the plugin.

I will be looking at ways to improve the blur and speed of the effect, and I will look at how the "unfocus blur" works to see if I can mimic it.

Thanks for the feedback.

It's not too hard doing by hand But takes more time..

Here's an idea. How about making different blurs option. ie. A dropdown menu allowing users to pick what blurs the plugin uses. even radial blur, motion blur..and such.

Thanks for your time!

[Dalton]

Yes!

I was just going to try and use a regular blur the other day to do something like this... but this is soooo much easier!

Thank you!

Btw, nice job!

[ncfan51]

Cool! Like Picasa's "soft blur" but better!

[vista?]

Here's an idea. How about making different blurs option. ie. A dropdown menu allowing users to pick what blurs the plugin uses. even radial blur, motion blur..and such.

Thanks for your time!

I agree, an option like that would be lovely.

[R3VENGE]

this is really cool but is it just me or is it slow...?? well to me its really slow still it makes a great effect

[DaveD]

Does this not work with 3.22?

I've been trying over and over. I keep getting one bar on the progress bar and it just sits at 99% CPU for about 3-4 minutes until I just give up and press Cancel.

Essentially, this plugin would taking something like 45 minutes or more to do the initial preview.

Any comments from the developer of this plugin would be great, because I love the idea of it and could put it to a lot of use, but it just doesn't work for me.

Cheers,

Dave

[jchunn]

Does this not work with 3.22?

I've been trying over and over. I keep getting one bar on the progress bar and it just sits at 99% CPU for about 3-4 minutes until I just give up and press Cancel.

Essentially, this plugin would taking something like 45 minutes or more to do the initial preview.

Any comments from the developer of this plugin would be great, because I love the idea of it and could put it to a lot of use, but it just doesn't work for me.

Cheers,

Dave

On slower computers and/or larger images with a relatively high "blur factor" this can happen. As the render gets further from the center point, it gets exponentially slower because it is processing a larger and larger number of pixels to create the blur. The way the code currently works, the further you get from the "focal point", the more pixels surrounding the "current pixel" being processed are looked at to determine the color of the "current pixel". The next version will have some optimizations to relieve this, but for now, the workaround is to use a lower "blur factor" and/or a smaller image (or smaller selected area).

[DaveD]

On slower computers and/or larger images with a relatively high "blur factor" this can happen. As the render gets further from the center point, it gets exponentially slower because it is processing a larger and larger number of pixels to create the blur. The way the code currently works, the further you get from the "focal point", the more pixels surrounding the "current pixel" being processed are looked at to determine the color of the "current pixel". The next version will have some optimizations to relieve this, but for now, the workaround is to use a lower "blur factor" and/or a smaller image (or smaller selected area).

Thank you for the quick response Jesse and also for providing details on how it works as well as the workaround. I will definitely give the workaround a try later on tonight. The image that I am using is 2832 x 2128 pixels, so that is pretty big I guess. My Windows partition is fully encrypted with TrueCrypt as well, so that probably puts some extra strain on the CPU when working with large images.

Anyways, thanks again for creating great plugins and providing them to others to enjoy.

[jchunn]

I have just posted an update. If you get the latest version of the plugin pack I'd like to hear your feedback on the improvement. This update should address the performance issues. Let me know if that does it for you.

[DaveD]

I have just posted an update. If you get the latest version of the plugin pack I'd like to hear your feedback on the improvement. This update should address the performance issues. Let me know if that does it for you.

Amazing! The previous version was a seemingly "never-ending" preview for me. This updated version did the initial preview on the same image in about 8-10 seconds. Every other minor changes I made in the options and it was still usually around 8-10 seconds to refresh the preview. You've just made a 99% performance improvement for my use of your plugin.

Great job, keep up the wonderful work.

[jchunn]

I have just posted an update. If you get the latest version of the plugin pack I'd like to hear your feedback on the improvement. This update should address the performance issues. Let me know if that does it for you.

Amazing! The previous version was a seemingly "never-ending" preview for me. This updated version did the initial preview on the same image in about 8-10 seconds. Every other minor changes I made in the options and it was still usually around 8-10 seconds to refresh the preview. You've just made a 99% performance improvement for my use of your plugin.

Great job, keep up the wonderful work.

Awesome! Thanks for the feedback. I'm glad the changes helped.

[ptz1961]

I added you focal point plugin and found the same issue. Move the slder to quality 3 and the rendering takes 20 minutes on a big file. I can only find the original plugin for downloading. Can you point me to the link for the update?

Btw, it's an awesome plugin and so are several others from your pack. Thanks for doing this.

[jchunn]

I added you focal point plugin and found the same issue. Move the slder to quality 3 and the rendering takes 20 minutes on a big file. I can only find the original plugin for downloading. Can you point me to the link for the update?

Btw, it's an awesome plugin and so are several others from your pack. Thanks for doing this.

If you have a quality slider, you have the latest version. I am planning another update very soon (probably in the next 24 hours) that will be another drastic improvement in the performance. I knew when I posted the first version that there would be some performance issues... and I am getting around to fixing them now.

The remaining performance problem is specific to very large images. The current algorithm will apply progressively more "blur" the further the render is from the "focal point". More blur = slower performance. Since very large images will allow a greater area that is a longer distance from the focal point, there is an exponential decrease in performance as the image gets larger, especially if the "in-focus" area is small.

The fix for this will be to "cap" the maximum amount of blur. I will probably make this an adjustable option, but with an "absolute" maximum as well.

Thanks for the feedback... I'll try to post another update ASAP.

[jchunn]

Ok, added "Blur Limit", which should drastically improve performance on large images with (practically) no quality degradation.

[ptz1961]

Thanks, That's great. The limiter works perfectly. I just tried it on a 19mb TIFF file and it only took about 60 seconds on limit 5 quality 3. Very well done and great plugin. Funny I spent thousands to buy the best lenses i could find and now want to make my images fuzzy!

Do you know if anyone has a plugin that will creat a soft white border around a picture (like a vignette effect only white) I will be shooting several weddings this year and some of the clients want this soft white border effect on several shots. It can be done with the filters I have but it's better done afterwards because the filter effect is part of the image that can't be changed.

[jchunn]

Thanks, That's great. The limiter works perfectly. I just tried it on a 19mb TIFF file and it only took about 60 seconds on limit 5 quality 3. Very well done and great plugin. Funny I spent thousands to buy the best lenses i could find and now want to make my images fuzzy!

Do you know if anyone has a plugin that will creat a soft white border around a picture (like a vignette effect only white) I will be shooting several weddings this year and some of the clients want this soft white border effect on several shots. It can be done with the filters I have but it's better done afterwards because the filter effect is part of the image that can't be changed.

Hmmmmm... that sounds like a good idea for a new plugin

Something like this? http://z.about.com/d/graphicssoft/1/0/Y/j/4/ak23-16vignette.png

[ptz1961]

Thats basically the idea. and also being able to adjust the intensity of the effect. Something like the image Oval Centre Spot White

Ref. 140 on this page.http://www.cokin.com/filtres5.html?=#140. I have this filter but of course when you shoot with it, it's impossible to 'undo' in software if you don't want the vignette effect and softness.

[Tanel]

Do you know if anyone has a plugin that will creat a soft white border around a picture (like a vignette effect only white) I will be shooting several weddings this year and some of the clients want this soft white border effect on several shots. It can be done with the filters I have but it's better done afterwards because the filter effect is part of the image that can't be changed.

Check out this tutorial: viewtopic.php?f=12&t=5513#p57490

Maybe Jesse get some ideas for new plugin there too.

[Dalton]

Wow.

This version is sooo much faster than the last one.

Good job.

[ptz1961]

Do you know if anyone has a plugin that will creat a soft white border around a picture (like a vignette effect only white) I will be shooting several weddings this year and some of the clients want this soft white border effect on several shots. It can be done with the filters I have but it's better done afterwards because the filter effect is part of the image that can't be changed.

Check out this tutorial: viewtopic.php?f=12&t=5513#p57490

Maybe Jesse get some ideas for new plugin there too.

Thanks for pointing me in this direction. This works great and can be adjusted in so many ways to get the effect I wanted. Great forum guys. Thanks to Tanel for posting the tutorial as well.

[jchunn]

Another slight performance improvement March 8, 2008.