I want to employ a photographic technique called selective focus, where the foreground is blurry, and the image comes into focus on a figure that is located in the mid-ground. Does anybody have any tips on this? Seems like depth cueing isn't the way to go, as it just creates a mistiness in the background...

what you need is depth of field, it's located in the render options (settings) window on P5/P6 (don't know fi P4 had it or not) here and here are good places to start.

Another thought would be to postwork it. Render the full scene and bring it into photoshop (or equivanent) and do a gaussian blur. Then render just the figure you want not blurry and save as a tif. Bring into photoshop and use the alpha channel to select just that character. Then cut and paste onto anothe layer over the first image.

something like this ? With Poser6, it's easy. With Poser5, it's possible, but quite hard. With both version, it takes VERY long !

Oh... no postwork on the picture above...

Wow--great feedback. Thanks all. Seems like I'll use the Photoshop solution until I upgrade to Poser 6.

Only thing i don't like about the depth of field in Poser is that botchy effect with the blurring.

and have i missed it or does the Depth of Field only control the setting the back, or rear of the range in focus?

Everything between the lens and this focus control point remains IN focus -right? So seems there is no way (using Poser alone) to create a field of focus with blurred areas both IN FRONT and behind the focal point? (so, no selective range of focus even in P6?)

and re GRAIN, haven't tried yet, but manual page 120:

"NOTE
IF THE RESULTS OF YOUR DEPTH OF FIELD SETTINGS ARE TOO GRAINY IN THE BLURRED AREAS, TRY RAISING THE NUMBER OF PIXEL SAMPLES. DOING SO WILL RESULT IN A SMOOTHER EFFECT, BUT INCREASED RENDER TIMES."

(their caps)

And, if in P4 for a while....

You can selectively and progressively blur in a paint app by hand, but you may find this trick faster.

Poser 4's Depth Cueings transparency effect is calculated automatically and applied progressively, starting at the lens (most opaque) to the object furthest from the camera (most transparent) whether those objects are visible or not.

You cant change the front setting, as it starts at the lens, but you can cheat the back setting by adjusting the location of an invisible prop in the background.

An oldie-but-goodie trick for simulating DOF in P4 is to render twice. Once normal (without Depth Cue), then again using Depth Cue and with a blurred version of the first render as an imported Background.

The Depth Cueing transparency effects will increasingly reveal more of the blurred background through the objects further from the camera.

Still requires one step in a paint app, but you can quickly apply a general blur to the whole image and then let Pose's Depth Cue function do the hard work of determining how much blur to make visible at different distances.

Revised from PoserPros post:
http://poserpros.daz3d.com/forums/viewtopic.php?p=85203

originally posted at PFO

DOOH! Ok, where have I missed the control? Just noticed the foreground IS in fact out of focus in semidieu's unretouched image above.

Yes, depth cue confuses me. It seems that you select a color for depth cue, and that the image fades out to the selected color. So how can depth cue be a blurring effect? It seems that it's more of a fade-to-[selected color] effect??

Ah - not just a color! Depth Cueing's transparency effect fades to WHATEVER is in the background buffer.

Either to your Background Color as you described, or, as I'm suggesting above, to a copy of your render, blurred in a paint app, then Imported back into Poser as a Background Image.

You are simply letting the Depth Cueing's transparency function automatically vary how much of the blurred background image comes through on each surface:

• there will be little transparency applied to the closer objects, so little backgound image comes through, and they render normal (sharp),

• but more transparency is applied to objects farther away, so more of the blurry Background version of the image is mixed in, and so they appear increasingly blurry the farther they are from the camera.

So, with the Depth Cueing's increasing transparency, fading moreto the blurry background image for objects farther away from the camera, it mimics a depth of focus effect.

Attached Link: http://www.daz3d.com/support/tutorial/index.php?id=795

With Poser6, it's really easy to create depth of field: Create your image; With the camera selected, turn the dial of the "focus distance". A prop will appear to choose where you want the focus of the camera (if you change the value manually, the prop won't appear !) Set the fstop value: it give how far from the focus point it will begin to became blurry. With Poser5, i made a tutorial on DAZ3D (link above) !!! the python script work for the standard focus of the camera, ie 38 !!! The picture i made above was done using 10 pixel samples. As you can increase it until 36, it can certainly be a better quality... But it will be extremly long to render.

What I would do is take the image into PSP, select the area I want to blur, contract and feather it, copy and paste as a new layer, and then use gausian blur on what you just copied. It should blend in nicely with the picture at the bottom.

Thanks, all. What I've learned here is after testing P5's focal distance option, is that it takes entirely too long to render. I'm just not that patient. So, until I decide to go with P6 I will go with Acadia's solution, and use gaussian blur. Acadia, not sure about the contract and feather instructions--it created a strange effect around the perimeter of the selection, after applying the blur--still, I get the general idea. Thanks!