About

TiltShift is an Aperture Edit Plug-In for computer generated tilt-shift photography. The software allows you to create fake miniature versions of regular photos, simulating the effect of expensive tilt-shift lenses.

You can define an arbitrary position for the virtual focal plane and setup its properties using an intuitive visual interface. Controls for saturation, contrast, sharpness and vignette directly inside the plug-in let you create amazing fake miniatures without applying any other filter in Aperture.

System Requirements

• Mac OS X 10.5 or later
• Aperture 2.1 or later

Download

There seems to be a serious issue with the ATI Radeon X1600 and X1900 graphics cards. If you encounter strange plug-in results, please send me a screenshot and the kind of graphics card you have.

Click here to download: TiltShift.dmg.zip (476 KB)

Installation

Move the file TiltShift.ApertureEdit (the file extension is hidden) to one of the following locations on your hard-drive:

• /Library/Application Support/Aperture/Plug-Ins/
• ~/Library/Application Support/Aperture/Plug-Ins/

In case the folder Plug-Ins does not exist yet you have to create it manually first. After you moved the plug-in to the right location you can launch Aperture and start using it.

Alternatively you can use the installer. Double click Install TiltShift and the installer will copy the plug-in to the correct location and create the plug-in folder if necessary.

System Requirements

• Mac OS X 10.5 or later
• Aperture 2.1 or later

Store

The TiltShift Aperture Edit Plug-In is no longer available for sale (read the blog post for details). Please consider the TiltShift desktop version instead, which has even more features than the plug-in. The desktop version is available on the Mac App Store.

Click here for desktop version: TiltShift - Mac Tilt-Shift Photography

Registration

Upon successful purchase you will receive an email containing your personal license key.

Click on Registration… in the action menu in the upper right corner of the plug-in window to bring up the registration sheet. Enter your full name (used during purchase) and the license key from the email and click the Save button. The plug-in will validate your license key and eventually dismiss the registration sheet.

Once you have registered your copy of TiltShift the plug-in will not render the “Demo Version” text over all photos anymore and you can enjoy the full version.

Support

Please send me an email to support@tiltshiftplugin.com in case you want to comment, have feature requests or want to report bugs.

I get a lot of emails every day, so please give me a few days to respond. In case you have not heard back from me after a week please write me again.

Getting Started

Select a photo from your project library and choose Images > Edit With > TiltShift... from the main menu or right-click the photo and select Edit With > TiltShift... to open the plug-in window. In the plug-in window you get an instant preview of the plug-in result.

You can drag the two blue handles on both sides of the blue line to the desired position to change the virtual focal plane in the photo. While dragging one of the handles you can hold down the Shift key on your keyboard to snap the blue line to 0, 45 or 90 degrees. After every change of the focal plane a new preview is generated.

You can setup the virtual focal plane properties by changing the amount of blur in the upper part of the plug-in window and dragging the two yellow focal plane controls to the desired position. With the inner control you define the area that should not be blurred. The outer control lets you define the slope between sharp and blurred area. The focal plane control itself shows you the resulting effect by a transparent yellow gradient.

To increase the tilt-shift effect you can change the saturation, contrast and sharpness of the overall image directly inside the plug-in. Using a higher saturation, contrast and sharpness you can simulate the look of miniatures which usually have stronger colors.

Add a final vignette directly inside the plug-in to darken the corners of your image. Photos of miniatures usually have a vignette when you get too close to the object. In this case the bayonet hood blocks ambient light at the rim of the lens, making the image darker in the corners.

Click on Reset All Settings in the action menu in the upper right corner of the plug-in window to reset all settings to the default values.

You can hide the focal plane controls by clicking on Show Focus Control in the action menu, the left button in the lower part of the plug-in window or pressing the H key on your keyboard to better review the result. Click or press one more time to show the virtual focal plane controls again.

Click on Zoom to Actual Size in the action menu, the right button in the lower part of the plug-in window or press the Z key on your keyboard to review a pixel accurate preview of your settings. Use your mouse, trackpad or the visible area indicator to scroll to another part of the photo like in Aperture. Click or press one more time to zoom out again.

You can review the effect of the plug-in by clicking on Show Master Image in the action menu, the middle button in the lower part of the plug-in window or pressing the M key on your keyboard. The plug-in will show the master image without any effect applied by the plug-in like in Aperture. Click or press one more time to hide the master image again.

Click the Save button to create the full resolution version of the tilt-shift effect once you found the desired position of the focal plane. Depending on the size of your photo and the performance of your Mac this calculation may take a few seconds or even minutes.

The plug-in will save all your settings, except the virtual focal plane handle positions, and the plug-in window size when you click the Cancel or Save button. The next time you launch the plug-in it will use these saved values as default. To restore the settings to its initial values click on Reset All Settings in the action menu.

Although the plug-in displays always only one image, you can apply the tilt-shift effect on several images at the same time. When you have more than one photo selected, while launching the plug-in, the window’s title bar will be labeled TiltShift: IMG_1234 (and 2 others) (or something similar). When clicking the Save button, the plug-in will process all selected images. The progress is shown in the bottom bar of the plug-in window.

Contact

You can write me an email to contact@tiltshiftplugin.com and follow me on twitter via @tiltshiftapp.