Spot Focus

Posted on 22. Jul, 2009 by Jerzy Drozda Jr in After Effects

Recreate the Edge Softness filter as seen in Red Giant Software’s amazing plugin – Magic Bullet Looks. Animate your focus area, change it’s width and softness, and save it as a preset for later use. Quick and easy.

Some time ago I wrote a note on my Facebook Fan Page about upcoming tutorials. I’m happy to announce that the day has come – the tutorials are recorded and all will be released soon. This is the third out of four tutorials that will be focused on recreating some of my favorite filters from a great color correction tool – Magic Bullet Looks.

In this very short tutorial you will see how to take the technique from the previous tutorial and modify it to create a circular spot focus instead of a linear swing tilt. Make sure to check out the Uses of the Circle tutorial. This technique comes directly from there. Enjoy!

Download: Spot Focus Preset (After Effects CS3)

Tags: presets, tips, Tutorials

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26 Responses to “Spot Focus”

PhSn

22. Jul, 2009

nice tut dude ;)

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Eran Stern

22. Jul, 2009

worthy one – just for the clamp expression alone :)

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- Jerzy Drozda Jr
  
  22. Jul, 2009
  
  You should check out the preset. Even more expressions in there. Just thought to make it more universal.
  
  Reply to this comment
- Peter
  
  24. Jul, 2009
  
  Maltaannon you have a really big fan base, and I can also see the great Eran Stern and I read Aharon Rabinowitz also talking about your accomplishments. Great Job. Keep it up
  
  Reply to this comment
Andrewe

22. Jul, 2009

Ha! You did use the circle effect :P

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- Jerzy Drozda Jr
  
  22. Jul, 2009
  
  Yyyyyyyes Sir I did. Now try to figure out how I’ll do the Shutter Streak.
  
  Reply to this comment
  - Andrew
    
    23. Jul, 2009
    
    Let’s see… fast blur (vertical only, lots and lots of it, + repeat edge pixels), and the same light sweep as last time. :) That should do it
    
    Reply to this comment
    - Jerzy Drozda Jr
      
      23. Jul, 2009
      
      Try it and let me know on facebook fan page. You can even upload your results there.
      
      Reply to this comment
Tommy

23. Jul, 2009

great tut. thnx! something i will use pretty often…

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Anthony

24. Jul, 2009

This is really cool!

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VinhSon

26. Jul, 2009

Excuse me, great video tutorial, I’ve been looking for ages for something like this, may I ask what screen recorder you are using? Email me if you can :)

Thanks, keep up the great work!

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Manuel

31. Jul, 2009

Thanks a lot Jerzy, this looks great and ain’t that difficult to accomplish, I’ll post in your facebook page my results! Greetings from Argentina!

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spyvspy aeon

18. Aug, 2009

Really great, loved the simplicity, thanks a lot for sharing.

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archa

25. Sep, 2009

i didnt see the project file with stuff. There’s not here, is it?

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gantico

07. Oct, 2009

Hi Maltaannon,
your tutorial shows (in a very smart and inspiring way) how to get a quick effect with a very fast rendering, but the result could be even more interesting using Lens Blur.

Fast blur faded in this way has a kind of “soft focus” collateral effect, because the blurred part of the image is progressively fading in opacity but not in the radius of blurriness.

To simulate a real lens behavior, giving a more realistic depth of field, Lens Blur filter is really amazing. It doesn’t fade opacity but it reduces progressively (you just need to create a proper map) the radius of the blurriness.
Unfortunately it’s quite processor intensive…

You might consider to create a follow-up tutorial with Lens Blur option. I’m sure that if you do it, you will invent another of your cool tips&tricks (don’t tell me that you can do it with just one layer, without a separate depth of field map layer!!!)

Keep on rocking with your site!!!

Cheers from Italy.
:-)

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- Klas
  
  29. Nov, 2009
  
  Great tutorial, very uesful.
  
  Yeah using the LensBlur created really nice results aswell, but was render heavy. Thanks for the tip.
  
  Reply to this comment
пapaзит

12. Dec, 2009

+1 к предыдущему комментарию :)

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ali

22. Dec, 2009

thx man for sharing

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Becham

27. Dec, 2009

И как это автору не жалко столько времени на написание статей тратить, мы конечно очень благодарны, но вот я лично на такой альтруизм не способен :)

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vindey

28. Dec, 2009

useful!
i like it!
the lenburs created a nice work!

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After Effects: trying to create fake depth of field at Helpful stuff

23. Mar, 2010

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sarah

24. Jun, 2010

Thanks, this was extremely helpful. Especially since it was so simple for a newbie like myself.

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