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.

By default, whenever you add a link in your webpage, its underlined and displays in a different colour from the rest of the text. However, there might be times when you want to remove the underline. Here’s how to do it.

I uses the text-decoration property to remove the underlines from link text. By default, the browser will set it to underline. To remove the underline, all you need to do is to set the text-decoration property to “none”.

Is removing underline a bad idea?
Underlining links is a standard convention followed by all web browsers and, consequently, users expect to see links underlined. Removing the underline from links that appear within text can make it very difficult for people to realize that these words are in fact links, and not just highlighted text. There are other ways in which you can style links so they look attractive, and removing the underline is rarely, if ever, necessary.

Links that are used as part of a menu, or appear in some other situation in which the text is quite obviously a link—for instance, where the text is styled with CSS to resemble a graphical button—are a different story. If you wish, you can remove the underline from these kinds of links, because it should be obvious from their context that they’re links.

Click here to download the photoshop action file.

I’ve learn this extreme contrast effect from a photoshop tutorial website. I’ll use another photo from our previous wedding photo shootout. You’ll be able to download the action file for Photoshop, at the end of the article.

First, duplicate a copy of the “Background” layer (original image). To duplicate, press Ctrl + J.

Desaturate this layer by clicking Ctrl + Shift + U. Duplicate another layer by clicking on “Layer 1″, and click Ctrl + J again.

With “Layer 1 copy” selected, change the blending mode to Screen, and Opacity 50%.

Duplicate the original “Background” layer. Click on the “Background” layer, and press Ctrl + J. Move the duplicated background layer to the top of the pallete. With the “Background copy” layer still selected, change the blending to Overlay.

With the “Background copy” layer still selected, press Shift + Ctrl + Alt + E to merge all the layers onto a brand new layer at the top of the Layers palette. This gives you “Layer 2″.

With “Layer 2″ selected, click Filter > Noise > Add Noise, and enter the value for each field. Ammount - 3%, Distribution - Gaussian, Monochromatic - checked. Click OK.

Then apply the sharpen effect by clicking Filter > Sharpen > Smart Sharpen. Enter the following value. Basic - Checked, Settings - Default, Amount - 60%, Radius - 1.0, Remove - Lens Blur, More Accurate - checked. Click OK.

With “Layer 2″ selected, change the blending to Soft Light, Opacity 60%.

To end this, you’ll need to create a Curves Adjustment Layer. Click on the New Adjustment Layer icon at the bottom of the Layers palette, and select Curves. Click OK. I’ve enhanced my picture with a vignetting effect. Shown below is the image of before and after applying the effect. Enjoy.

Click here to download the photoshop action file.