We show you how to spice up your portraits by adding out-of-focus effects. You’ll learn how to make bokeh in Photoshop by creating your own custom brush tip then using filters and blending modes to make bokeh.
The term ‘bokeh’ refers to the circular spots that appear in out-of-focus areas of an image. Usually creating bokeh in-camera means investing in a fast lens, shooting at a wide aperture and catching out-of-focus highlights in the background. But with a few simple skills we can replicate the effect in Photoshop.
The key to success here is the amazing Photoshop brush engine. Not only can you create your own brush tips from any shape you like, you can also change the way the brush applies colour by randomising it.
If this all sounds a little complicated, then don’t worry, it’s simply a case of opening the Brush panel and experimenting with the settings.
The key sliders for our bokeh effect here are Scattering and Jitters. Combine them with the right Spacing setting, and you can create beautiful random patterns with just a couple of brush strokes.
We’ll show you how to define a bubble-like brush tip here for our bokeh effect, with a transparent centre and opaque edge.
Once done, we’ll apply a few simple settings to create our randomized bokeh brush. All we have to do then is paint with the brush on a few separate layers and apply different strengths of blur to each layer to add depth to the effect, then drop in our cut-out portrait. It’s great fun, and easier than you might think…
SEE MORE: How to cut out people like a professional with the Refine Edge tool
Step by step how to make bokeh in Photoshop
Cut out a portrait
We’ve provided a cut-out portrait for you to use here, but if you want to cut out your own, begin by painting over the figure with the Quick Selection brush to select it (hold Alt and paint to subtract if it goes wrong).
When you’re happy with the initial selection, go to Select>Refine Edge and increase the radius to improve it (while in the Refine Edge command, paint over tricky edges, like hair, for a better result). Set Output to Layer Mask and hit OK. You should now have a precise cut-out, to use either for this effect or for any other montage idea.
Click here to download our portrait
01 Make a brush
Go to File>New, choose A4, set Background Contents: Transparent, hit OK. Grab the Elliptical Marquee tool. Shift-draw a small circle, go to Edit>Fill and use black. In the Layers panel, set Fill 50%, then go to Layer>Layer Style>Stroke. Set Size 8px, colour black. Hit OK.
SEE MORE: 10 Photoshop mistakes photographers make (and how to avoid them)
02 Define a brush
Go to Edit>Define Brush Preset. Name it and hit OK. Create a new layer, hit Alt+Delete to fill it, go to Layer>
Layer Style>Gradient Overlay. Click the preview bar, double-click the little squares under the gradient to choose two colours (blue and purple here). Hit OK.
SEE MORE: Orton Effect: try this quick, soft-focus Photoshop trick
03 Customize the brush
Grab the Brush tool. Toggle the Brush panel in the Options bar. Use Brush Tip Shape, set Spacing 100%. Use Shape Dynamics, set Size Jitter 100, Minimum Diameter 50. Use Scattering, set Scatter 1000, Count 3. Go Transfer, set Opacity and Flow Jitters to 50%.
SEE MORE: Photoshop Adjustment Brush – how to make quick, localised tweaks
04 Paint and blur
Make a new layer, click the Blending Mode drop-down in the Layers panel, choose Color Dodge. Pick a light grey and paint scattered bubbles. Pick Filter>Blur>Gaussian Blur. Blur the bubbles (Radius 40px), hit OK. Repeat on another layer, with a lower amount of blur.
SEE MORE: How to mimic studio lighting for stylish portraits
05 Build it up
Continue painting and blurring on more layers (set to Color Dodge), varying the brush size and blur amount. Go to File>Place Embedded and choose bokeh_cutout.png to drop in the subject. Add more bokeh layers on top. Hit Ctrl+Shift+Alt+E to merge a layer.
SEE MORE: The 7 best colour controls in Photoshop (and how to use them)
06 Add tonal effects
Select Filter>Blur Gallery>Iris Blur and blur the edges of the frame. Go to Filter>Camera Raw Filter. Grab the Radial Filter, set Exposure -3 and drag to darken the corners. Create an adjustment layer, choose Colour Lookup and select a tonal preset, like ‘2 Strip’ here.
Final Tip
To add atmospheric sparks to the effect, paint random white dots then use Filter>
Blur Gallery>Path Blur to create streaks of light
READ MORE
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The post How to make a bokeh effect in Photoshop (download our cut-out portrait and follow along!) appeared first on Digital Camera World.