How to Create Miniaturized Scenery With Photoshop

Here’s a simple photo effect that even beginning Photoshop users can apply to their photos. By manipulating a photo using Photoshop CS’s Blur feature you can create an effect that will make the scenery in the photo appear, to be smaller or miniaturized as if the photo was taken of a miniature set or model set. This effect works best with photos taken from an aerial perspective and featuring objects that can easily be seen as miniaturized, such as cars, trees, and buildings.

Difficulty: Moderately Easy

Instructions

Things You'll Need:

• Computer (PC or Mac)
• Photoshop CS (or higher version)
• Photos

1. 
   Original image

   Enter Quick Mask Mode in Photoshop by pressing Q on your keyboard.

2. Make sure that your foreground color is set to black and the background color is set to white. If they are not, you can reset them to this setting by pressing D on your keyboard.

3. Select the Gradient tool by pressing G on your keyboard. If the Paint Bucket tool is set as the default, simply click and hold down the mouse button over the Paint Bucket icon, then select the Gradient tool icon.

4. Set the gradient to “Reflected Gradient” and the gradient type to “Foreground to Background”

5. Move the mouse cursor to a focal point of the image. This is the part of the image that you want to make appear to be the most clearly miniaturized. Hold Shift, click and hold the mouse, then drag the cursor vertically to about halfway up the picture and release. For scenery pictures a good guideline is to drag the cursor from your focal point to about where the skyline meets the horizon.

6. A red gradient will appear. This is why it is necessary to be in Quick Mask Mode.

7. Exit Quick Mask Mode by pressing Q on your keyboard. The red gradient will disappear, and in its place, the image will now appear with a selection around the area of the focal point.

8. Now apply a lens blur to the image. Select “Filter” then “Blur” and click on “Lens Blur”

9. The Lens Blur dialogue box will open. Apply the following settings to the blur--set the “Shape” to “Hexagon”, set the “Radius” to “15", set the “Threshold” to “245” and set the “Distribution” to “Uniform”. If you’d like, you can play with these settings until you achieve the desired effect. Click OK to apply the blur.

10. 
    After applying the lens blur filter.

    The image should now look blurred with a clear area where you selected your focus point. Now, deselect the selection around the focal point by clicking “Select” then “Deselect” or by pressing “Ctrl + D” (on a PC) or “Cmd + D” (on a Mac).

11. Open the Hue and Saturation settings for the image by selecting “Image” then “Adjustments” and clicking “Hue/Saturation” or by pressing “Ctrl + U” (on a PC) or “Cmd + U” (on a Mac)

12. 
    The final result.

    Set the Saturation to roughly 25 to 35. You can also play with this setting until you get the desired effect.

13. 
    Another version with a different focal point and saturation.

    Click OK to apply the Saturation change. Objects in the image should now appear miniaturized or toy like in their appearance.

Tips & Warnings

• Try playing with the settings of the Lens Blur and Saturation as well as where you place the focal point to achieve a variety of effects.