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Tool · beta

Real photo, tabletop feel.

Drop a photo, drag the focus band, watch the world become a miniature. Three focus shapes — horizontal band, vertical slice, radial spot. Saturation and contrast crank for the full plastic-toy illusion. Nothing uploads. For real lens work, grab a real camera.

No account, no upload Three focus shapes Full-resolution export
An example of what Tilt-Shift Effect produces

try it on a sample photo

Make a photo look like a miniature

Blur everything outside a narrow band of focus so a real scene reads as a tabletop model.

A photo before Tilt-Shift Effect
Before
The same photo after Tilt-Shift Effect
After

What you can change

  • Band
  • Slice
  • Spot
  • Sharp band position
  • Spot position
  • Sharp band size
  • Blur strength
  • Saturation
  • Contrast

How it works

  1. 01Drop in a photo, or open one of the samples.
  2. 02Choose the focus shape — band, slice or spot — tap the photo to move it where you want it, then set the sharp band size, blur strength, saturation and contrast.
  3. 03Download it at full resolution. Nothing is uploaded — the work happens in this browser tab.

Tilting the lens…

◦ where tilt-shift earns its keep

Six places miniature beats reality

  1. 01 for cities

    A street scene that looks like a tiny model

    Tilt-shift turns a real street into a HO-scale model. Position the focus band over the people walking, blur the buildings above and the road below, bump the saturation. The full-size city becomes a tabletop diorama — same scene, dollhouse feel.

  2. 02 for travel

    A miniature European market square

    Travel photos of bustling squares always read better in tilt-shift than as flat documentary shots. The focus band on the market stalls, the blur on the cathedral and cobblestones, and the saturation crank — suddenly the photo is a postcard, not a reference image.

  3. 03 for landscapes

    Vertical-slice tilt for a tall waterfall

    Switch to vertical-slice mode and the focus runs up-and-down the frame. Useful when the subject is vertical — a waterfall, a building facade, a tall tree. Blur left and right, sharp band through the center. Reads as 'one focused thing' instead of 'wide scenery'.

  4. 04 for portraits

    Radial-spot focus for a portrait halo

    Radial mode puts the focus inside a circle — sharp at the center, blurring outward. Place it on a face, set a moderate blur, and the photo reads like a vintage soft-focus portrait. The classic Vaseline-on-the-lens move, free, controllable.

  5. 05 for sports

    A horizontal action shot with a focus stripe

    Sports and action shots benefit from a focused band across the action and blur on the periphery. Reduces visual noise around the subject without cropping. Helmets, bikes, dance moves — all read sharper when bracketed by intentional blur.

  6. 06 for video stills

    A cinematic still from a phone video frame

    Phone video stills look flat because phone lenses have huge depth of field. Tilt-shift adds the optical-feel of a real cinema lens — shallow focus, blurred background. The frame suddenly reads as a film still, not a screen grab.

◦ in case you’re wondering

Frequently asked

Does the photo upload anywhere? +

No. The blur composite runs on a canvas in your browser. Your photo never touches our servers — we don't run an image pipeline at all.

How does tilt-shift fake the miniature look? +

Real miniatures are photographed with shallow depth of field — only a thin slice is in focus, and everything else falls off gradually rather than all at once. This tool builds that ramp: several blur radii layered outward from your sharp band, so a detail just outside the band goes slightly soft and something at the frame edge goes fully out. Then saturation and contrast add the 'plastic toy' richness. The brain reads a gradual focus drop-off as 'small subject, close camera' even though the scene is huge — a hard cut-off just reads as a blurred photo.

Which focus shape should I pick? +

Horizontal band: classic city/street tilt-shift, blur top and bottom. Vertical slice: tall subjects (waterfalls, buildings), blur left and right. Radial spot: single subject in the center (portrait, product), blur outward in a circle.

Why bump saturation and contrast? +

Real miniature scenes (model trains, dioramas) have intense saturation because the paint is fresh and the lighting is bright. Bumping saturation on a real-world photo cues the brain to read it as a model, even before the blur registers. Contrast adds the same effect — strong shadows feel 'staged'.

My photo looks weird with default settings — what should I change? +

Move the focus position to where your subject actually is — default is the middle, but a cityscape's people might be in the bottom third. Then narrow the focus band so the blur kicks in tighter to your subject. Smaller focus band = more pronounced miniature effect.

Will this work on close-up photos? +

It can, but the effect is muted because real close-ups already have shallow depth of field — adding more blur on top can look exaggerated. Tilt-shift sells best on wide-scale scenes where reality has too *much* depth and you're forcing it shallower.

now what?

A few moves after the diorama lands

· Also in Effects & looks

The rest of this shelf

31 more tools on the hub — searchable

For real shallow-focus →

Use a real lens for real-time miniature work.

A real tilt-shift lens (or a fast prime at f/1.4) gives the optical depth of field this tool fakes. For deliberate miniature photography on a budget, a 50mm f/1.8 plus creative framing beats software every time.