Adobe Photoshop Rolls Out ‘Portrait Mode’ But It’s Still Far From Perfect
Image via Adobe
The May 2021 update for Photoshop brings a handful of iffy changes—including a confusing ‘Save a Copy’ option to add to Save and Save As. There’s also a new Neural Filter called Depth Blur, which essentially serves as Portrait Mode for existing photos, but experiments with this feature haven’t always turned up satisfactory results.
Blurring out backgrounds is considered one of the more essential techniques in Photoshop, but it will take a number of steps to get there when done manually. With Depth Blur, users can complete the process in a few clicks under Filters > Neural Filters > Depth Blur, which instantly generates a depth map of images. They can then add haze around subjects and tweak surroundings to make them look warmer or cooler.
As demonstrated by Unmesh Dinda of YouTube channel PiXimperfect, though, results haven’t always been as consistent as if you were to create a blurred background from scratch, since the software can’t always identify subjects. Nonetheless, you could always polish up the image with a little masking.
It’s worth noting that Depth Blur is still a beta feature. If you’re wondering why Adobe decided to roll it out anyhow, it’s because it requires user feedback in order to train the Adobe Sensei AI to do better. Currently, attempts to use Depth Blur will prompt a dialog box asking if you are “satisfied with the results.”
[via Fstoppers and PetaPixel, cover image via Adobe]
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