The world looks like it's made of toys with this fun Photoshop trickery.

The “before” photo (top) is the San Francisco skyline. In our tilt-shift version (bottom), we focused on the church, blurred the rest, and pumped up the saturation to make the buildings look like miniature toys.

Difficulty Level: Medium

What You Need:

>> Photoshop CS3 or higher. We used Photoshop CS4.
>> A photo taken from an elevated place--see Step 1 for more.

Tilt-shift photography produces images that have a very sharp focus but also have a very shallow depth of field, making the landscape, buildings, and figures in the photo look like toy representations of their actual-size counterparts. To shoot genuine tilt-shift photos, you need a small- or medium-format camera with special lenses, and the image composition requires precise rotation of the lens parallel to the image plane and a proper orientation of the plane of focus--in other words, you need to be a professional photographer with some pretty pricey equipment.

Fortunately, it’s still possible for novice photographers to emulate this look on the cheap thanks to Photoshop. With the right source photo and the application of a few filters, you’ll be able to simulate the tilt-shift look, making cars look like Micro Machines and houses look like miniature-scale models made out of cardboard and toothpicks.

1. Choose an Appropriate Photo

We snapped this from our fire escape. Sure, you can come over sometime.

Choosing the right photo for this faux miniature model is the most important step of this process. When you select your photo, make sure it has an elevated viewpoint--more than 30 degrees--and that it has a reasonably wide-angle field of view, Additionally, tilt-shift images look best when they’re populated with lots of small figures, such as cars, pedestrians, or foliage.

2. Enter Quick Mask Mode

We've circled the two options you need to click.

Enter Quick Mask mode by pressing Q; you’ll notice that the top of your photo’s status bar window will now display Quick Mask Mode. Press G to select the Gradient tool. In the toolbar at the top of your screen, make sure the Reflected Gradient option is selected, which is the fourth icon from the left. For your gradient color scheme, choose the first gradient style selection, which should say Foreground to Background when you hover your mouse over it.

3. Define the Focus

The red part will be in focus.

Next, choose a point on your image where you want your final photo to be focused. Starting from that point, draw a vertical line, ending where you want the photo to transition out of focus. The area of focus should now have a red overlay. The gradient scheme you chose will ensure that the parts that aren’t red will be blurred, and your focus area will be the foreground. To get the focus area just right, you may have to try drawing the gradient line several times. For most tilt-shift photos, the in-focus space should take up no more than a third of the entire image.

4. Blur Your Photo

If the blur effect is too strong, pull back that Radius slider a little.

Exit Quick Mask mode by pressing Q; Photoshop will convert your gradient into a selection path. Leaving it active, point your cursor to Filter > Blur > Lens Blur; a window will pop up with a preview of your photo with options on the right side. Below the Preview checkbox, select More Accurate, and under Iris, the shape should be Hexagon with a Radius of 15, a Blade Curvature of 0, and a 360-degree Rotation.

Under Specular Highlights, set Brightness to 11 and Threshold to 255 with no noise. Photoshop may have already defaulted to some of these values for you. Click OK to apply these changes and the blurring effect. You’ll notice that your area of focus is perfectly visible, while the surrounding area is blurred.

5. Increase Saturation

Crank up the color with a high saturation.

Deselect the photo and open the Hue/Saturation menu--look under Image > Adjustments or hit Command-U. You’ll want to amp up the Saturation so your photo looks more vibrant, matching the tone of tilt-shift photos. For this particular image, we set the Saturation to 45.

6. Tweak the Curve

Tweaking the curves adds the finishing touch.

Almost done. The last step is to adjust the tone and contrast of the photo with the Curves tool, accessed via Command-M. In our example, we tweaked our settings only slightly to increase contrast and darken the photo. Follow the underlying histogram to determine how to set your curve. Again, this setting depends on the photo you’re working with and your own preferences. When you’re finished, accept the changes and save your photo.