What is a tilt-shift image?

Tilt-shift photography uses a lens that tilts the plane of focus, so only a thin slice of the scene is sharp and everything in front of it and behind it falls off into blur. Seen from above, a real street or harbor photographed this way looks like a tiny scale model. The same "miniature" look can be faked afterwards by blurring a normal photo outside a chosen focus zone.

Tool description

This tool turns any photo into a tilt-shift miniature in your browser. Pick where the image stays sharp by dragging on the preview, choose a straight band or a round spot, set how wide the sharp zone is and how quickly the blur grows, and boost the colors for a toy-like finish. The download is rendered at the full resolution of your photo.

Features

  • Linear focus band at any angle, or a radial focus spot
  • Drag on the preview or use the arrow keys to place the focus
  • Adjustable focus size, transition, and blur strength
  • Saturation, contrast, brightness, and vignette for the miniature look
  • Focus guides that show the sharp zone and where the blur reaches full strength
  • Full-resolution export as JPG, PNG, or WebP

How it works

The blur grows smoothly with the distance from the focus zone, the way it does with a real lens. The tool builds a handful of blur levels of increasing strength and blends between the two nearest ones for every pixel, so there are no visible steps between sharp and blurred areas. Transparent areas are handled so they don't leave dark edges. All processing runs on your device in a background thread; the image is never uploaded.

Tips

  • Photos taken from a high viewpoint looking down at an angle, like from a rooftop, bridge, or hill, give the most convincing miniatures.
  • Put the focus on the main subject, such as a street, a car, or a group of people, and keep the sharp zone narrow.
  • Match the band angle to the scene: a road running diagonally usually looks best with a tilted band.
  • A saturation boost of 30 to 50% and a little extra contrast make the scene look like painted plastic models.