Can we do this with only AE?

[Todd Kopriva]

Yes, that’s something that you can do in After Effects.

The jargon for this currently very popular technique is ’tilt-shift’.

One component of a common approach is the Lens Blur effect. See the “Lens Blur effect” page; at the bottom of the page, there’s a link to a tutorial on how to do this.

Here’s an After Effects Community Help search that pulls up many more useful resources on this technique.

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Todd Kopriva, Adobe Systems Incorporated
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[Will Cavanagh]

To elaborate on what’s already been said —

You can use the lens blur effect, setting the depth map to a solid with a white->black linear ramp on it. You can then use the positions of the black and white points to control where the blur starts and ends. I would also recommend playing with the bokeh settings in the lens blur effect for a more organic look.

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