"Christ these are beautiful."

June 30, 2016 6:46 PM

Tilt shift effect applied to van Gogh paintings [imgur]. More tilt-shift fun: "The Late Show with Stephen Colbert" Open Director's Cut [YouTube]
posted by joseph conrad is fully awesome (24 comments total)

these are nice but that's not what tilt-shift is
posted by beerperson at 6:51 PM on June 30, 2016 [2 favorites]

Oh! These would be so perfect in one of those little window boxes where you peer through a tiny cutout at a little diorama world, drawing you towards a world swirling with more color in a thousand vivid brilliant shades. How does this work so well add an optical illusion on the eye?
posted by dorothyisunderwood at 7:01 PM on June 30, 2016 [3 favorites]

Looks more like depth of field. But some of these van Gogh ones are stunning - the first one is especially striking. Thanks for this!
posted by satoshi at 7:14 PM on June 30, 2016

Sigh. Depth of field is "tilt-shift" in the same way that pixel art is "8-bit" in the same way that instrumental music is "classical."

Still neat photoshop jobs though.
posted by DoctorFedora at 7:26 PM on June 30, 2016 [4 favorites]

If Van Gogh had wanted them to look that way he would have painted them that way...
posted by jim in austin at 7:32 PM on June 30, 2016 [1 favorite]

I don't think van Gogh could have imagined them that way. In Tim's Vermeer they point out that except in photographs and movies, we don't see some parts of a scene as in focus and others out of focus. In the Vermeer paintings there was (for example) a bed post near the front of a scene that was out of focus. So you could look at that post and it would be out of focus. In reality, we can't do that. When we look at a bed post, our eyes automatically bring it into focus. It was one of the things that made them suspect that Vermeer was using lenses. I think if van Gogh wanted his scenes to look miniature, he wouldn't necessarily have known how to paint it that way.

Anyway, these are cool. I don't care what they're called.
posted by If only I had a penguin... at 8:25 PM on June 30, 2016 [11 favorites]

There are other ways of throwing things into/out of focus, including something I did for a few years by aligning photos from slightly (1 - 2 inches) different view points into virtual focus. Here are a bunch of scenes from around Chicago, if you're interested in this concept.
posted by MikeWarot at 8:31 PM on June 30, 2016 [11 favorites]

Those are gorgeous. Thank you.
posted by Abehammerb Lincoln at 9:13 PM on June 30, 2016 [1 favorite]

Tilt-shift achieves an apparently reduced depth of field in cases where you'd need to be focused at least at the hyperfocal distance to capture anything sharply in the first place, so the application of the term here is actually pretty intuitive. Not to get in the way of how smart everyone is, of course.
posted by invitapriore at 9:51 PM on June 30, 2016 [6 favorites]

25 people on imgur bloviating "that's not tilt shift" was predictable, but it's a bit much on metafilter. Can you not read? In both the metafilter post and (most of) the Reddit posts it said "tilt shift effect". Perhaps you can go comment on a YouTube video of Bob wall and helpfully remind us all that diluted titanium white brushed over a dark area with a fan brush isn't a real diffuse reflection.
posted by lastobelus at 10:14 PM on June 30, 2016 [3 favorites]

yes, all you pedants, the photoshops are technically not tilt-shift, but the The Late Show opening sequence shots are.

regardless, these are hella sweet.

appropriate reaction gif in the first comment
posted by numaner at 10:15 PM on June 30, 2016 [1 favorite]

u can't do tilt-shift on a painting des not one understand /??:
posted by invitapriore at 10:22 PM on June 30, 2016 [1 favorite]

I don't know much about photography or videography, but I knew on Colbert's first night on The Late Show that the opening sequence was tilt-shift. It's beautiful work. You've got to love something that makes NYC look like Mister Rogers' Neighborhood.
posted by bryon at 10:58 PM on June 30, 2016

I eagerly await the angry Guardian article from Jonathan Jones
posted by Panthalassa at 1:36 AM on July 1, 2016 [1 favorite]

God, Photoshop! You're not my real dad!!!!
posted by rum-soaked space hobo at 3:00 AM on July 1, 2016 [5 favorites]

I'm sorry. This gives me a headache. What ever you call it.
posted by tommyD at 3:46 AM on July 1, 2016

Nice
posted by brevator at 4:12 AM on July 1, 2016

This is actually what I come to this site for: brutal pedant ownage
posted by Potomac Avenue at 4:12 AM on July 1, 2016 [3 favorites]

I kinda think the originals are pretty beautiful all by themselves.
posted by that's candlepin at 6:49 AM on July 1, 2016

These were great, thanks for sharing!
posted by a lungful of dragon at 6:56 AM on July 1, 2016

In reality, we can't do that. When we look at a bed post, our eyes automatically bring it into focus.

What? I can do this. I can look at your words on my screen and throw my eyes out of focus at will. It doesn't look like a "tilt shift effect" but it is out of focus and blurry.

You really cannot do this?
posted by bdc34 at 7:14 AM on July 1, 2016 [1 favorite]

dorothyisunderwood - that's exactly what I thought as soon as I saw these. Let's make dioramas!
posted by moonmilk at 8:04 AM on July 1, 2016

> In Tim's Vermeer they point out that except in photographs and movies, we don't see some parts of a scene as in focus and others out of focus. In the Vermeer paintings there was (for example) a bed post near the front of a scene that was out of focus. So you could look at that post and it would be out of focus. In reality, we can't do that.

This is confusing to me (but I've not seen Tim's Vermeer). If I am looking at an object a few feet away (the guest chair across from my desk, say, or a pencil held out at arm's length), things much closer to me (my mug, or another pencil held at elbow length) are out of focus, as are things beyond it (the rest of my office and the hall outside). My eye has a distinctly finite depth-of-field, and I'm very aware of this effect -- it's how I can tell how far away something is! Why wouldn't Van Gogh or Vermeer or anyone else been able to capture that sense of focus?
posted by Westringia F. at 8:23 AM on July 1, 2016

It's partly true what IOIHAP is saying, for the most part our experience of the world is that we adjust focus inherently and for mid-range and longer distances we don't really notice notice depth-of-field. However, the main argument is mistaken, and we know this simply because the "miniature effect" is so universal and profound. There are some aspects of enculturation with regard to how we tend to think that photographs are realistic, but this particular example, at this extreme, isn't one of them -- we experience the miniature effect because we are quite aware of limited depth-of-field for very close-up objects. Our experience of depth-of-field is one among several components of our cognitive apparatus for perceiving size and distance.
posted by Ivan Fyodorovich at 3:00 PM on July 1, 2016