Introduction

This is a special look given to pictures which look like "model trains", also sometimes called toy-town effect. This effect can be achieved in different ways: you need to produce a thin in focus area. Several possibilities exist:

using a tilt (or tilt-shift) lens so that both the top and the bottom of the scene are out of focus, making figures look tiny.
- Some of the best lenses to use are the Minolta VFCs (in 35mm and 24mm varieties), which allow for "variable field curvature," and some additional flexibility.
use a lensbaby, a cheap alternative to a real tilt lens
use Photoshop to get the same effect

How to with Photoshop

Real tilt-shift lenses are quite expensive but it's very easy to simulate the same effect with a little bit of photoshoping. The typical picture to start with would be an high vantage point. This photo taken from the observation room in the Nori tower overlooking Tokyo is a good enough example.

The goal is to simulate the tilt-shift effect by faking a narrow depth of field and then to simulate the plastic look by increasing the saturation and the contrast.

Open the image in Photoshop and go in quick mask mode this will allow us to quickly create a selection mask for where to apply the lens blur effect.