Tilt–Shift Photography

As defined by Wiki, Tilt–shift photography is the use of camera movements on small- and medium-format cameras to simulate miniature scene. These movements are: rotation of the lens plane relative to the image plane, called tilt, and the movement of the lens parallel to the image plane, called shift. This genre of Photography can be done, of course by using a special and expensive tilt-shift lenses.

http://media.the-digital-picture.com/Images/Other/Canon-Tilt-Shift-Lenses-Tilted.jpg

The good news is, this effect can also be achieve digitally! That's right, by use of Photoshop or any other image-editing softwares, the fake miniature effect is possible. That saves us a lot of bucks! And I'd rather call it, Tilt-Shift Photography Effect.

Here's a brief overview of the process - 

1. Choose a photo taken from above. Please avoid overhead shots as it will not illustrate a shallow depth of field.
2. Manipulate the focus to give emphasis to your subject. Then blur out everything!
3. Increase color saturation
4. Boost image contrast.
5. Adjust Levels, Curves, etc as needed.

And here are the results.

Shutter speed: 1/30s Aperture: f/5.6 ISO 400 Focal Length: 36mm

Shutter speed: 1/80s Aperture: f/5.6 ISO 100 Focal Length: 50mm

Those shots were taken a couple of months ago from the view of my office building. Like I said, a high-angle shot would be the best candidate if you're looking for an image to practice for. This gives an illusion as if we are looking down toward the miniature model, which is our main goal here, right?

There are a lot of tutorials online if you need a more detailed instructions on how its done. Here's a sample! Go try it end enjoy!