Car motion blur

[Steve G]

Someone posted the topic below back in 2017 but at the time there didn't appear to be a suitable response. Given that Affinity has moved on since then, can anyone now help me achieve the same effect. Thank you

"Hi I'm a car photographer and I just discovered Affinity Photo and love it I just have a specific edit I'm trying to achieve that I haven't found the exact tutorial for.   I do a lot of rolling shots for cars and aside from the partial motion blur the camera does I need a way to intensify the motion blur when editing like in the picture.  I found the motion blur layer and it didn't work exactly like the pictures, maybe I'm doing it wrong, but some instructions would be greatly appreciated! I want to note that I like the motion with the lines on the road not just blurred background and the car needs to remain in focus exactly like the picture."

[NotMyFault]

Can you provide a unedited photo?
in principle, depth of field blur is the way to go.

• prepare the image: isolate car from background. Fill in background behind car (inpainting etc).
• apply DOR blur to background, vertically

[NotMyFault]

Below a first draft. Lacking all refinement e.g. shadow below car, just to invision the workflow.

car speed blur.afphoto

[NotMyFault]

Or maybe using motion blur and a rectangle with a gradient on alpha.

[Steve G]

Hi NotMyFault (love it!), thanks for your responses.  The effect I'm trying to achieve is in the first image (two Porsches) showing the road 'speed lines', the other two images are my original and my attempt so far. Your last image is very close to the effect I'm trying to get. I'm trying to understand your reference to using a rectangle! Thanks.

[GarryP]

You might find it difficult to replicate this sort of effect on your photo because you have ‘continuity of background’ (just a made-up phrase but hopefully understandable) between what’s in the foreground and what’s in the background.

In both of your example images, what’s behind the car is very far away from the car so the blur is easier to add than in your photo where the trees continue from the extreme foreground right back to the ‘vanishing point’ without any gaps. The blur will be greater towards the viewer than is is further away.

Since the blur in these sort of images is created from 'movement in 3D', it might be difficult to properly replicate this movement by adding 2D blur effects. You might have to try lots of different effects all at the same time, each affecting a different part of the image, and that still might not give a satisfactory result.

If you don’t get this sort of thing spot-on then it can look very wrong. Trying to replicate ‘reality’ can be difficult.

My recommendations for things to try would be to use a different picture, or crop the picture somehow, or take the photo again with different shutter/lens settings (I don’t know which, I’m not a photographer).

[carl123]

Move/Duplicate function is worth a look. (Takes a bit of getting used to though)

 

[user_0815]

In this case I would suggest zoom blur rather than motion blur. That's because the motion blur isn't parallel but converging towards the background. When you click and drag, you can move the zoom center which should be at the vanishing point of the scene.

However, this picture is challenging because of what is besides the road. Unfortunately the zoom blur filter is not a live filter which makes it less convenient.

Obvously I have just made some very rough selection for this example...

 

 

 

[Steve G]

19 minutes ago, carl123 said:

Move/Duplicate function is worth a look. (Takes a bit of getting used to though)

 

Hi Carl123 this is exactly what I'm trying to achieve. Are you able to explain how to do it, or point me to a tutorial which can please.  Thanks.

[GarryP]

10 minutes ago, Steve G said:

Hi Carl123 this is exactly what I'm trying to achieve.

Is that really exactly what you are trying to achieve?

I only ask as the 'blur' is only (and simply, with respect to carl123, I know it’s just a draft example) applied to the road, while what’s near the road is not blurred at all and looks quite wrong. It looks like the car is parked on a section of strangely stripey, maybe ‘corrugated’, road.

If that really is what you want then that’s your decision.

[Steve G]

2 minutes ago, GarryP said:

Is that really exactly what you are trying to achieve?

I only ask as the 'blur' is only (and simply, with respect to carl123, I know it’s just a draft example) applied to the road, while what’s near the road is not blurred at all and looks quite wrong. It looks like the car is parked on a section of strangely stripey, maybe ‘corrugated’, road.

If that really is what you want then that’s your decision.

Your observation is correct GarryP and yes I should have qualified my response.  In my original post I referred to my desire to enhance the blur of the road with the 'stripey' effect as per my example of the two Porsches, and yes the motion blur would also need to apply to other parts of the image to maintain it's authenticity.    This is my best attempt so far using just Motion Blur.

[carl123]

16 minutes ago, Steve G said:

Hi Carl123 this is exactly what I'm trying to achieve. Are you able to explain how to do it, or point me to a tutorial which can please.  Thanks.

It was not easy - especially if you are new to APhoto

Basically make a copy of the car for later use (Hide it)

Copy the Main Background image

Use Move/Duplicate on the copied main image (scale 99%, Number of copies 300)

Group all the Duplicates

Use Live Perspective Filter on the group to move the road's starting point back to the right

Add mask to the Group and remove the effect on the trees, sky, hedges etc (basically everything but the road surface)

Unhide the car layer you copied earlier

Add Roadrunner cartoon figure

All done

You will notice that no sort of blur filter has been used in any of the above. This was just to get the line effect on the road. You can selectively add motion blur etc to the other elements in the image if you want to

[NotMyFault]

1. seperate car and background
2. inpaint  hole in background
3. select a copy of street, lower half of image
4. duplicate flattened
5. tone map persona, 100% local contrast, % tone compression
6. use zoom blur, 32px radius, draw center to middle of image so the blur matches the perspective

[Steve G]

21 minutes ago, carl123 said:

It was not easy - especially if you are new to APhoto

Basically make a copy of the car for later use (Hide it)

Copy the Main Background image

Use Move/Duplicate on the copied main image (scale 99%, Number of copies 300)

Group all the Duplicates

Use Live Perspective Filter on the group to move the road's starting point back to the right

Add mask to the Group and remove the effect on the trees, sky, hedges etc (basically everything but the road surface)

Unhide the car layer you copied earlier

Add Roadrunner cartoon figure

All done

You will notice that no sort of blur filter has been used in any of the above. This was just to get the line effect on the road. You can selectively add motion blur etc to the other elements in the image if you want to

I'm giving this a go carl123. You refer to Move/Duplicate, is this one function and if so where do I find it? I have Duplicate as layer option but not Move/Duplicate, or do you mean Duplicate 300 times at 99%, group them, then follow the next step,  Perspective Filter  ....

 

Thanks for your help

 

[carl123]

1 minute ago, Steve G said:

You refer to Move/Duplicate

With the Move Tool active select the copied background layer, then hit the Return/Enter key, this should bring up the Move/ Duplicate dialog box

[Steve G]

9 minutes ago, carl123 said:

With the Move Tool active select the copied background layer, then hit the Return/Enter key, this should bring up the Move/ Duplicate dialog box

Got it, thanks. I've never tried anything like this  so bear with me 🙃

Should I have 300 duplicates, it just seems to be reducing the size of one duplicate by the 1% each time I do it?

Edited April 9 by Steve G
Unsure of action

[Steve G]

18 minutes ago, Steve G said:

Got it, thanks. I've never tried anything like this  so bear with me 🙃

Should I have 300 duplicates, it just seems to be reducing the size of one duplicate by the 1% each time I do it?

Ok I've sorted the duplicate step.  Should I have applied motion blur anywhere before the Perspective Filter, I'm a little confused with this step. Attached is. ascrren shot of where I am, with the duplicated layers grouped and moved to the top right corner.    I hope you have plenty of patience!!

[carl123]

Well first of all you are working on a different image so different instructions may be needed and it does not look like you have duplicated the copied background layer correctly

On the original image this is what you should see at the Move/ Duplicate stage

(test my instructions only with the original image until you understand how everything works)

 

 

 

 

[Ldina]

One more attempt. 

1. Extract car to its own layer. 
2. Create a shape of the road with Pen tool.
3. Add Conical Gradient to create variations in the tone of the road. 
4. Mask edges with a soft brush to blend into side and distant end of the road
5. Use a Warp filter to follow the curvature of the road.
6. Apply destructive Zoom Blur (rasterizes layer, warp and mask into a single layer)
7. Set blend mode to Luminosity and lower opacity as desired...I used 60%.

A bit convoluted, and I actually like some of the other approaches as well or better, depending on the effect you want to achieve. 

 

[Steve G]

1 hour ago, carl123 said:

It was not easy - especially if you are new to APhoto

Basically make a copy of the car for later use (Hide it)

Copy the Main Background image

Use Move/Duplicate on the copied main image (scale 99%, Number of copies 300)

Group all the Duplicates

Use Live Perspective Filter on the group to move the road's starting point back to the right

Add mask to the Group and remove the effect on the trees, sky, hedges etc (basically everything but the road surface)

Unhide the car layer you copied earlier

Add Roadrunner cartoon figure

All done

You will notice that no sort of blur filter has been used in any of the above. This was just to get the line effect on the road. You can selectively add motion blur etc to the other elements in the image if you want to

Hi carl123 this is where I have got to.  I still need a little more explanation on the next step please, specifically the positionng of the perspective layer. Thank you.

[carl123]

27 minutes ago, Steve G said:

I still need a little more explanation on the next step please, specifically the positionng of the perspective layer. Thank you.

If you hide all layers except the original image layer you will see where the road ends on the horizon - drop a guideline there (as shown below)

Unhide the layers you previously hid and on the Group layer add the Liver Perspective Filter and drag the top-left node to the right so your distorted road ends on the guide line (the road not the node you are dragging)

Now we have lost some of the bottom left of the road, so to correct this drag the bottom-left node to the left (off the canvas) as shown to recover the road we lost.

That's me signing off for the day, so any more queries I'll answer tomorrow

(See simulated image below, not an actual screenshot of my working screen. The top image shows the nodes of the Perspective Filter and where I dragged them to)

 

[Steve G]

15 minutes ago, carl123 said:

If you hide all layers except the original image layer you will see where the road ends on the horizon - drop a guideline there (as shown below)

Unhide the layers you previously hid and on the Group layer add the Liver Perspective Filter and drag the top-left node to the right so your distorted road ends on the guide line (the road not the node you are dragging)

Now we have lost some of the bottom left of the road, so to correct this drag the bottom-left node to the left (off the canvas) as shown to recover the road we lost.

That's me signing off for the day, so any more queries I'll answer tomorrow

(See simulated image below, not an actual screenshot of my working screen. The top image shows the nodes of the Perspective Filter and where I dragged them to)

 

Thanks for taking so much time, it is much appreciated

[RNKLN]

There still is this tool: https://www.virtualrig-studio.com/#features

[matisso]

@Steve G, there’s a much better (as in “convincing”) way of doing it, I believe.

The guidelines show – more or less – the vanishing point of the motion blur. To be referred later. 👇

1. Separate your car.
2. Inpaint the area “behind“ the car – otherwise there will be red in the blurred background, which will be a dead giveaway.
3. Duplicate your background without the car a few times. I made four copies.
4. Apply Zoom Blur to each background copy, clicking the vanishing point as the centre of the filter each time. Each consecutive layers will have a smaller blur value than the previous one (or larger, doesn’t matter, it’s about the progression). The maximum value I did with this picture was 30 px, the next one was about 20 px, I guess, last ones, 15 and 6, give or take. Use your best judgement.
5. Next, you need to mask your zoomed layers, so that there’s this illusion, that the farther from the camera things are, the less blur they get (the line of trees just at the left edge, far behind the trees by the road should not receive so much blur, but that would require a lot more work). I put the most blurred layer at the bottom, then the less blurred ones were stacked on it. Use a big soft brush for your masks. This is how my layer stacked looked like, I also grouped them and added an extra mask to the entire group:
   
   
    
6. For added realism – you will notice that the foliage behind the windshield will likely be still (unless you separated the car without the transparent parts of the windshield), so you might work on this a bit, too. My result could use some more love there, it’s complicated as there are some reflections in that windshield as well.

Enjoy!

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