Depth Pass PS action

[mattjgerard]

Hey all, I've been playing with the depth pass after learning what exr and 32bit images are and why they don'e behave as I thought they should. Thanks to the excellent tutorials, I'm now using depth passes all the time. So, that combined with being an efficiency nutball, I'm making a set of actions for Photoshop just to handle some of the mundane operations. I have a whole set of 12 actions for my own workflow that won't be very useful to others, but here is one that i made to make the depth pass operations.

The action basically does this-
-Duplicate layer
-Make Exposure Adjustment Layer to -10
-Make Levels Adjustment layer and set to Auto Monochromatic
-Merges the adj layers with the duplicated layer and copies it to the clipboard

Then you can switch to your main rendered image and paste it into a new alpha channel, apply the lens blur to the rendered image and select Alpha 1 as the Depth Map Source, then click in the window to choose what is to be in focus. So flexible!

I have another more complicated version that does all of this and leaves it at the lens blur effect window, but its not totally solid, and it really needs to have everything closed out of PS with the rendered image opened first, then the exr depth pass, and the layers all left named as default. I'll tweak it more and maybe post it next week.

Here is the tutorial explaining the depth pass. I'm not adding anything new or different, just automating as much as I can.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B_iMUp5gVsY

[richardfunnell]

Sorry to jump in, but we really need to re-record this Quick Tip since I learned (maybe from Esben?) that to simplify the adjustment process you can simply use Image > Adjustments > HDR Toning > (Flatten) > Equalize histogram.

This option completely automates the toning to give you a perfect result for depth map usage.

[mattjgerard]

Thanks for pointing that out, Richard! I'm still gonna map it to a keyboard shortcut, copy and paste it into my render as an alpha, duplicate the bkgd layer and apply the lens blur effect. Mayeb I'll figure out how to get a  photoshop action to trigger my coffee machine too

CHeers, thanks for the heads up.

Question to add though, the HDR tone mapping has to be done inside the 32bit exr image, correct? You can't pull that file into the 8 bit render psd and do it there, as it seems to loose all that data once it is pulled in.

Is that true with the 32 bit psd render, or should I be able to do all that inside the 32bit psd file?  Just curious.

[richardfunnell]

Haha let me know once when you've figured out a Photoshop + coffee machine workflow, I'd be interested in that one myself

Yes, any adjustments to the depth EXR have to be done in the 32bit file; all the extra information is lost when converting to 8bit. As far as I know even when rendering a multi-layer 32bit PSD file the depth still is exported as an EXR, not entirely sure why myself.

I will usually use the HDR Toning to get my Lens Blur channel (then save), then convert to an 8 or 16 bit image to do any layer masking effects (like fog or depth-based adjustments) in my composite image. 32bit workflows are still not my area of expertise.

[mattjgerard]

Yes, any adjustments to the depth EXR have to be done in the 32bit file; all the extra information is lost when converting to 8bit. As far as I know even when rendering a multi-layer 32bit PSD file the depth still is exported as an EXR, not entirely sure why myself.

You are quite correct, the 32 bit psd render still spits out a seperate exr for the depth pass. I'm not well versed on 32bit workflows either, so I will stick with the other path of processing the exr in its own file, then copy/pasta into the alpha in the rendered working file.

Cheers!