Improving the Vue DOF (demo) by bigbraader
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No AI - This artwork was created entirely by hand or with traditional digital tools.
Description
I finally figured out how to use the DOF option in Vue - yucckk ;0)
I set my scene with the morels (earlier version can be found in my gallery) to render in full screen, 5 hrs. 14 min. render overnight. I was deeply disappointed with the outcome: It was grainy, pixelated, altogether crummy (the left image shows the original render). Well, my first reaction was "OK, DOF is not really an option in Vue" and felt like deleting the image. But then again, I may be a newcomer to Vue d'Esprit, but I'm certainly not to Photoshop. So I thought I'd give it a try.
(I use Photoshop for my image-editing but I believe the same can be done with the other popular image-editors, i.e. PSP and Photopaint.)
The problem was a kind of speckeled noise, so I used the "despeckle" filter once, twice, 3 times and the grainy-ness was almost gone, but so was the detail in the focused areas (a side-effect of the despeckeling).
But in Photoshop you can go "back in time" to a previous state of the image, using the "history brush". So that's what I did on the areas that I wanted to regain their sharpness. It worked - IMHO at least.
In the present example I also tuned the overall appearance by adjusting the levels, I almost always do that. I'm not a fan of postwork in terms of painting, adding new things etc. but correcting rendering "flaws" is almost a must in most cases.
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I don't consider this a "tutorial" as such - who am I newbie to write tutorials :o) but if you are are interested, I'll write one (there are several other ways of "Photoshopping" DOF-effects, incl. the use of object masks. This one, though, stays true to the depth channel in Vue, and I like that!).
Comments welcome.

Comments (3)
the difference is certainly noticable (a lot that is). it would be great to see a tutorial on this.
Jeg synes du b skrive en tutorial! Det er en fantastisk effekt (selv for os der ikke har Photoshop :( ) og vi kan altid bruge flere tutorials! :) HVorfra fik du blomsten? Den er virkelig god!
Definitely an improvement. Nice job. Thanks for sharing!