Momathon Blog: Instagram Guide: Tilt-Shift Focus

In addition to the 18 Instagram filters, the photo app comes with added features to enhance your photos. Here is a guide to the focus feature.

Tilt-Shift Focus

Ever take a picture and wish you could highlight a specific area? Or maybe you have a distracting portion of your photo you want to fade into a blur. That is when the tilt-shift focus comes in handy. Although you want to make sure that your photo is in focus when you take it, you don't need to worry about highlighting a specific focus area as you take the photo. The Instagram app lets you can pick a focus area after you take the photo. Instagram includes two options for focusing that will blur the surroundings of the subject.

Instagram app includes two focus types:

line (linear) focus
circle (radial) focus

When you click on the Instagram tab that looks like a water drop or rain drop, the app gives you a choice of using the circle, line, or no focus (X). Complete step-by-step directions for using the focus feature below.

How to use the Tilt-Shift Focus

1) Select an image to modify in Instagram and click on one of the photo filters listed on the bar at bottom of the app.

2) At the top of the app screen you will see a row of icons.

3) Click on the Instagram tab at that looks like a water drop or rain drop.

4) Then select either the circle or the line icon to be the "in focus" area in your photo.

5) Use two fingers to play with the placement and size of the focus area on your image. If you select the linear focus you can even adjust the angle of the line.

6) The unselected portion of the image will fade into a blur.

6) If you don't like the focus that creates the 3-D effect, you can go back to the normal focus by clicking on the "x" icon.

Want to Change the Mood of Your Photos?

The focus feature lets you experiment with your image's depth of field (DoF). The adjustments you make will change the mood of your photos. I used the focus feature in the beach photos above to add a dreamy quality. I also used the Amaro filter which added to that surreal quality at the beach. The focus feature can also highlight the details in faces—especially fun to apply with dog photos.

I often photograph shelter dogs to help them find forever homes. Using the focus filter often adds an upbeat mood to the dog photo. Also, the filter blurs out some of the distracting background and highlights the featured dog.

The photo above features Betsy, an adorable shelter dog looking for a forever home at this animal rescue group.

If you enjoy taking nature photos, tilt-shift focus brings out the details in flowers and other plants.

IMAGES: The Instagram images are by me, Chris Olson using an iPhone 4 + Instagram. Feel free to Pin them on Pinterest with a link back to this post. Thanks!

You can find other posts in this Guide to Instagram series here:

Day 1: No Filter

Day 2: Amaro Filter

Day 3: Rise Filter

Day 4: Hudson Filter

Day 5: X-Pro II Filter

Day 6: Sierra Filter

Day 7: Lo-Fi Filter

Day 8: Earlybird Filter

Day 9: Sutro Filter

Day 10: Toaster Filter

Day 11: Brannan Filter