Setting center of radial blur in Photoshop

[bart_hickman]

Does anybody happen know if there's a way of precisely setting the center of the radial blur filter to align with a specific location in a photograph besides simply trial and error?

I think I could probably concoct a script to make it a lot easier, but before I do so, I thought there might be some clever ctrl-alt-shift-stand-on-one-foot trick that already does it (or maybe someone else already has a script or plugin).

Bart

[Swampy]

Bart, I've only had to be "exact" in a project once and what I did was create the blur on a new layer then move it in to exact position. Had to Free transformed to adjust the size so it would radiate out to the edges as needed, but it was no big deal. I could then mask as needed too.

[chillin]

I increased canvas size using relative adjustment to a new recalculated center position.

[bart_hickman]

That's an interesting idea--Thanks! That'll work for some of my cases. I may still need to make a script (I'm thinking of just placing an eyedropper and then have the script feed that location to the radial blur.)

Bart

[Swampy]

Ohh... Bart, that would be a cool script!

[des151]

Hi Bart,
Take a look at this tutorial, www.graphic-design.com/Photoshop/radial_blur/index.html
I hope this helps.
Ray

[byRo]

Nice find, Ray!

Actually it can be a little bit easier.....

When you draw out the crop handles, PS will be indicating the centre of the image. So, all you need to do is to align the centre of the crop to the centre of your blur - no need to draw diagonals.

Rô

[KR1156]

that crop trick is good to know, for super hi-rez files,,,like a gig and better. I used tojust make a lorez and use the window on the right of the option box to get the rough positio (just click and drag in that little previe sort of box to roughly position the center), then when i had to move it over a hair, the same settings would be there when i went back to radial blur, and i would nudge it in the right direction.

[DannyRaphael]

Facinating question and equally facinating solution.

I just wrote a PS action (under PS7) based on the tutorial Ray posted and on Rô's observation. Far as I know it should work on CS or later.

If anyone using CS or later would like to take it for a spin to test it, send me an e-mail and I'll shoot the .atn for a look-see.

[des151]

Thank's Ro

[bart_hickman]

A follow up on the script. It turns out the coordinates for the radial blur center are unavailable from either the script API or the "script listener" plugin. Another consequence of this is any action or script is at the mercy of where ever the user last set the center of the radial blur.

FYI,
Bart