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App for automatic background extraction / blurring

Started Aug 6, 2018 | Discussions thread
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TSGames Regular Member • Posts: 261
App for automatic background extraction / blurring

Hi Everyone,

I was working on a small app project. The idea was to automatically mask the foreground and blur the background of an image (similar to a small DOF approach). Some phones already do it with 2 cameras, and that's fine but mostly only works for limited distances.

So I tried to use an algorithm which uses subject-based approxmimation. This of course means it has nothing to do with actual DOF but rather just to "extract" your primary subject. In some cases however, this can also look pretty unique.

Long story short: Here is a download link so you can give it a try (I would appreciate some feedback of course)

https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.tssystems.bokehcamera

It's currently free to use and also ad-free.

Usage:
I hardly recommend not to use the build-in camera, because it currently supports not a lot of features. I rather recommend to take any picture, and "Share" it to the app. You can then automatically apply the effect and choose the strength.

My experiences:
- The more the background is blurred already in the image (e.g. when shooting macro) the better

- The primary subject should fill around 50-80% of the frame

- The primary subject should not have "holes"

- The primary subject should have not that much structure and similar colors

You shouldn't expect miracles, though. Not only an algorithm can't always decide what's actually the subject of interest, but also a smartphone has a more limited processing capability (of course, the app works completely offline)

The algorithm in theory would also support "hints" from the user (e.g. remove / add areas where you are sure). I didn't had time to add that feature right now. If there's general interest, I can of course further investigate.

The whole app was built in about a week, so please bear with me if it's crashing or may not produce the results you would expect. Performance is currently also under investigation.

Here are two samples from the results:

Regards

Torsten

 TSGames's gear list:TSGames's gear list
Sony RX10 III Sony a7R II Sony FE 90mm F2.8 macro Tamron 28-75mm F2.8 III
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