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Lens Character

Lens Character is a vintage lens as one setting. Below Depth of Field, pick a lens and its character is written across the optical sections at once: Depth of Field's bokeh (blades, bubble, squeeze, swirl, field curvature, fringe, glow), Lens Correction's distortion and color fringing, Vignette, Halation, Detail's texture, a coating curve in Recolor, and the Lens Flare's veil and ghosts. One undo step takes the whole character off again.

Nothing is applied until you choose. Heeler suggests a lens when the photograph's own lens name matches one, and marks it in the menu. The sections a character writes keep their fold, open or closed, and each one's switch shows it is on; the line under the menu says what was set.

The lenses: Helios 44-2, Meyer Trioplan, Petzval, Takumar 50 f/1.4, an uncoated 1930s lens, Anamorphic 2x, Jupiter-9 85, and Canon 50 f/0.95. Each is a starting point. Every section it wrote stays its own section afterwards, with its own switch and reset, so the character is a place to begin rather than a look you are held to. The aperture and focus are never written, and the flare dials answer only the lights in the Depth Lighting rig: what to switch on to see each signature is under Seeing the character below. Choosing another lens first puts back whatever the previous one overwrote, and switches off a section only that lens had switched on, so the photograph carries one lens at a time and never a blend of two.

Much of the character lives in the depth tools, so it lands best on a photograph whose depth plane has been computed; the sections ask for it as they need it.

Seeing the character

A freshly applied character can look quiet, because three of its signatures each need one thing from the photograph first:

  • The bokeh needs an open aperture. The apply never writes one (the aperture is the photograph's own decision), so while the aperture is zero the Open aperture chip shows under the menu: one click writes the lens's own wide-open aperture into Depth of Field and sets the focus from the depth plane, computing the plane first if the photograph has none (a one-time model download asks before fetching). If the plane was not there yet, the aperture still lands and the same chip reads Focus at the plane's median until a focus is set, by that click or by Set focus. Nothing is written behind your back.
  • The flare needs a flaring light. The Lens Flare dials answer only lights in the Depth Lighting rig with flare on, so while no light flares the Add a flaring light chip shows: one click adds one light at the frame's brightest point with its flare on, building Depth Lighting first if the photograph has none. It does not relight the scene.
  • The bloom needs highlights: Halation draws only where the photograph passes its threshold, so a frame with nothing bright enough shows no halo. Lower Halation's threshold, or pick a photograph with real highlights.

Each chip is one undo step of its own, separate from the apply's.

Open aperture, Focus at the plane's median, and Add a flaring light apply only while the photograph, take, and chosen character still match the click. Changing the target settings or closing this view cancels a pending answer. A newer click replaces an older pending read.