Focus blur

From OSP Wiki

This tutorial was last tested with Gimp 2.2.13 on Ubuntu 6.10 (Edgy) and on Windows XP Pro SP2 installed.

Overview

The Focus Blur plugin is very useful and can be used to create different effects, amongst them is simulating a shallow Depth of Focus (tutorial coming soon, in the meanwhile there is a tutorial here on using focus blur to create a shallow DoF effect).

Prerequisites

None

Steps

Windows

1. Close GIMP
2. Download the binary of the Focus Blur plugin here -> http://www.osphoto.org/files/fblur.zip
3. Unzip it.
4. Copy/move the fblur.exe file to C:\Program Files\GIMP-2.0\lib\gimp\2.0\plug-ins

Linux

It's a little more involved but you get the benefit of having a preview :)

1. Close GIMP
2. Install the libgimp2.0-dev package, this has the tool (called gimptools) to compile plugins from source.
3. On Ubuntu (and most Debian based systems) just run the command:

sudo apt-get install libgimp2.0-dev

4. Download the focus blur source file from the homepage -> http://sudakyo.hp.infoseek.co.jp/gimp/fblur/focusblur_e.html (direct link to version 2.3 of FBlur http://sudakyo.hp.infoseek.co.jp/gimp/fblur/fblur-2.3.c.gz)
5. Unzip it
6. Compile and install the plugin using the command:

CFLAGS="-O2 -DG_DISABLE_ASSERT -DFBLUR_PREVIEW=2" gimptool --install fblur-2.3.c

Arch Linux

On Arch Linux, there's an AUR package, see http://aur.archlinux.org/packages.php?ID=12683

Tips

1. The windows install is a global install, anyone that uses Gimp on that PC will have it available.
2. The Linux install is a single user only install.
3. To make the Linux install a global one copy it to the global plugin directory with the command:

sudo cp ~/.gimp-2.2/plug-ins/fblur /usr/lib/gimp/2.0/plug-ins/