One of the fancier lenses in the world of SLR and digital SLR (DSLR) photography is the tilt-shift lens. Architectural photographers use tilt-shift lenses to eliminate the perspective distortions that sometimes give buildings the appearance of falling over. Aerial photographers use them to make large cities look like toy models. Art and portrait photographers use them to control exactly where the focus falls.

Tilt and Shift lens can create nice effect but it will cost you a bomb as well. One of the samples of T&S lens is Lensbabies. 2.0 version cost USD$150 and 3G version cost USD$270 (http://www.lensbabies.com)

However, you can fake the Tilt and Shift effect by using Adobe Photoshop and today I will show you step by step how to do this.

Open up your photo and make any usual correction before start step 1.

Step 1: Click the Quick Mask mode button.

Step 2: Select Gradient Tool to indicate the parts of the image that you want to blur. Go to option bar at the top of the screen and click the reflected gradient type (the button that looks like a cylinder. Next, click the drop down button to bring up a small panel of gradient presets and select the box that black at top left hand corner and fades to white at the opposite corner.

Step 3: Click in the middle of your desired focus point and drag out a gradient line to the edge of the photo.

Step 4: Use the Curves (Image -> Adjustments -> Curves) to adjust how much you want to blur the photo.

Step 5: Now go back to Standard Mode and select Lens Blur filter (Filter -> Blur -> Lens Blur) to artifact the narrow depth of field.

Step 6: Adjust the blue by set the Blade Curvature to 100, Brightness to 0, Noise to 0 and Radius to 50 (adjust it to get the nice effect that you want). Click OK.

Step 7: Now you done and you can remove the selection. (Select -> Deselect).

Now you can see the before and after Tilt & Shift Lens Effect.