VariFocus provides mixed focusing on an image to create a "depth of field" effect. Depth of field is a photographic term applied when you have two (or more) objects being various distance from you. If both are in focus, there is a wide depth of field, if one or the other is in focus, there is a narrower depth of field. Photographically, you may want only part of an image to be in focus to draw the viewers attention to that section of the image. In addition you may want part of an image out of focus for "artistic" reasons. Either way, for any of these effects you might consider VariFocus.

Like all the other Andromeda software titles, you open the VariFocus window by selecting it from the Andromeda selection in Photoshop's Filter menu. Whatever image was open in Photoshop will be the subject in VariFocus' widow.

Also like all of the other Andromeda filter's windows, they are not resizable, but unlike all of the other filters, you move this window around in a unique way. As can be seen in the image above, you "grab" the little horizontal bar by mousing down, and drag the window to where you want it on your screen.

What VariFocus does behind the scenes is to create a new layer, blur the layer and add a Layer Mask to have a graded range from where the blurred layer lets the focused layer show through. The blacker the region in the layer mask the more of the focused layer shows through.

What you cannot do is to distort the pre-made shapes. That is, if you want an oval instead of a circle or a rectangle instead of a square, forget it.

What Andromeda has done to take this to the next step by providing interactive capability. That is, one can select what shape of mask to use from the 16 x 16 grid seen on the right hand side. In addition, one can select the size of the black (in focus) region on the fly by increasing or decreasing the red slider (located above the 16 x 16 grid). In addition, one can select the amount of Gaussian blur used by sliding the red slider below the image. The longer the red region, the greater the amount of blur.

As you look through the 16 x 16 grid, you can see a variety of shapes to select from. Again, black is full in focus and white is full blur and the gradient gray varies the amount of blured/focus depending on how wide the gradient is. The five buttons down the middle do an inverse, horizontal flip, vertical flip, and a 90° rotation of the layer mask. The last one lets you create a layer mask from the image you have selected from Photoshop. This means you can create our own shapes and use them. Unfortunately you cannot make a library of the various shapes you create. If you save a new one it replaces the last one you created.

But there's a couple of more cool things: If you make a selection in your image before opening VariFocus, the selection can become an Alpha Layer and you can use this to either make everything within the selection it out of focus or in focus. Note the two extra buttons available when the image has a selection.

Lastly, if you look on the bottom left of the screen, you'll see two buttons: Defocus and Sharpen. If you click on the Sharpen button, everything I said up to now in regards to blur can be changed to sharpen via the same techniques as the Unsharp Mask filter in Photoshop.

If you don't know how to make an Gaussian Blur Gradient Layer Mask you will find this to be a very handy addition to your filters. But even if you do know how to do this, you will love the added control abilities to change the size and character of your layer mask on the fly.

In short I liked VariFocus and it's real close to being a great product. All that's missing in Varifocus is the ability to save many separate shapes in a saved library and the ability to distort the provided shapes. I look forward to version 2 (especially if my wishes are there!).

• RedEyePro Filter
• LensDoc Filter
• ScatterLight Lenses
• Perspective Filter

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