As a designer, illustrator, and fine art photographer, I have long admired that unique, soft, selective focus or “tilt shift” effect that certain commercial, landscape, architectural, portrait, and fine art photographers achieve in their images when using a large format camera. The large format camera, which I had the distinct pleasure of using for the first time last fall, has two image planes, each of which can be adjusted vertically and horizontally as well as tilted forward and backward. The front plane contains the lens and the back plane contains the focusing screen and cut film holder or image sensor, for cameras with a digital back. According to the Scheimpflug principle (named after the Austrian who devised it to take better aerial photographs), when the camera’s lens and image planes are parallel but the plane of focus (PoF) is not, the image will only be in focus where the image plane intersects with the PoF. In other words, when the planes are not parallel, you can create some pretty interesting images with unusual blurred areas. For instance, a tilt of the front plane combined with a large aperture on the lens can create a beautiful shallow depth of field image which can often make a normal real-life scene appear as if it were a toy miniature.

Thanks to advances in technology, many photographers in the 1960s and 1970s were able to achieve this same tilt-shift effect by using new tilt-shift lenses on their smaller format cameras. Then, a couple years ago, the folks at LensBaby, Inc introduced their selective focus SLR camera lenses, providing film and digital photographers with an even more affordable way ($100-300) to make unique images with that tilt-shift, vintage, large format feel. Even more recently, however, a new software tool was released by Alien Skin for the digital photographer who knows their way around Photoshop, Photoshop Elements, or Fireworks. Using Alien Skin’s new ‘Bokeh’ Photoshop plug-in, the coveted tilt-shift effect can now be achieved digitally with a few simple clicks of your mouse.

The Bokeh Photoshop Plug-in
Bokeh (pronounced /bo?k?/ boke-uh) is a photographic term derived from the Japanese “boke,” which roughly translates to blur or haze. In the past few years, this term has often been used to describe the aesthetic quality created by a camera lens when using a shallow depth of field. Bad bokeh, for example, refers to a lens with distracting, visually unpleasing blurred areas, especially noticeable in images when reflected light in the out of focus areas appears as donut shapes with harsh double-lined edges. By contrast, good bokeh, refers to a quality lens (like the Cannon 85mm f/1.2L) that provides creamy and visually pleasing out-of-focus areas, as well as pleasing blur circles (or other shapes) in images containing multiple points of light. In most cases, an image with good bokeh will make the foreground pop against the background. This is especially noticeable in stop-action sports shots, wedding photos and portraits, and close-up images.

An example of an image with good bokeh (above) and bad bokeh (below). Notice the quality of the white areas and reflected surfaces in the background.

With Alien Skin’s Bokeh software, not only can you easily give your full focus images good pop by adjusting the bokeh of a selected area within your image, you can also change the character of spectral highlights, adjust depth of field, simulate popular lenses, apply vignettes, and mimic a tilt-shift lens to create toy model effects.

The Bokeh software interface is fairly easy and intuitive to use, and the software comes loaded with multiple presets to help you quickly apply the desired bokeh effect to your images. Thankfully, the Bokeh filter works both with and without selections. Without a selection, the filter is applied uniformly across the entire image as defined by the position, angle, direction, and size of the radial (elliptical) or planar (linear) controls. When a selection within your image is detected, the filter is applied to the areas outside of the selection. Furthermore, with each application of the filter, you may customize the amount of bokeh along with aperture controls such as diaphragm shape, smoothness (creaminess) of the blur, rotation, and blade curvature. You can even modify highlight controls to enhance or reduce highlights within the image.

The Bokeh interface is easy to use and customize.

To apply the Bokeh filter uniformly to the entire image, simply open the desired image in your Photoshop workspace and Select Filter>Alien Skin Bokeh>Bokeh to open the Bokeh dialog box. Alternatively, to apply the filter to only a specific area of your image, make a selection in your image of the area surrounding the focal point that you’d like to apply the bokeh to before applying the filter from the Filter menu. If needed, use the Refine Edge tool to apply a feather and smooth the edges of your selection, and if you plan on reusing the selection again later, be sure to save it as an alpha channel through the Channels palette.

Once the Bokeh filter dialog box opens, choose the desired lens type from the Lens tab. Next, in the Bokeh tab, select Planar or Radial to set the desired area of focus, which sets the fall-off area for the lens. When the radial option is selected, you can adjust the focus region and focus fall off by manipulating the shape and orientation of the radial tool. In the Vignette tab, you may choose presets or manually adjust the vignette shape, color, intensity, size, and feather. All of the Bokeh attributes in each of the three tabs can be customized and previewed before the settings are applied to your image. After configuring the all settings within the dialog box to your liking, the bokeh effect can either be applied directly to the image on the selected layer in your Layers panel or output into a new layer above current layer to preserve original. To immediately reapply the Bokeh filter with identical settings on another image or layer, click Cmd+Opt+F (Mac) or Ctrl+Alt+F (Win).

If you’re looking to simulate the shallow depth of field of a large format camera and make far away subjects look like toy miniatures, use Bokeh with a radial focus region. This effect works especially well with shots taken high and far away. To further enhance the miniature effect, be sure to also boost contrast and saturation using either the Alien Skin Exposure plug-in or the Adjustments tools available within Photoshop or Photoshop Elements.

The miniature effect before (above) and after (below) applying Bokeh.

Here’s another example…

The tilt-shift effect before (above) and after (below) applying Bokeh.

Overall, I give Alien Skin’s Bokeh software two thumbs up for its ease of use, wide variety of lens and blur presets, and customizable elements. My only feature wish for this fantastic product would be to add a way to manually manipulate the shape of the radial blur edges so that users could create non-uniform out of focus areas for more unique and expressive bokeh effects. Perhaps this could be done by activating each line segment and anchor point, as one does with an elliptical shape in Illustrator. Another enhancement would be to allow users to add multiple linear focus widgets within the dialog box so that two or more linear blurs could be applied in different directions at the same time to achieve the desired results.

If you like the idea of applying sophisticated selective blurs and realistic lens effects to your digital images, take a test drive of the Bokeh software by downloading a fully functional 30 day demo before you buy. To learn more about this robust image editing software, be sure to also check out Alien Skin’s free tutorial videos, reviews, case studies, and examples. Alien Skin’s Bokeh software is available for both MAC and PC for just $199 at http://www.alienskin.com/

About the Author
Sue Jenkins is a web and graphic designer, illustrator, fine art photographer, software instructor, and writer, as well as owner and creative director of Luckychair (www.luckychair.com), a full-service web and graphic design studio serving businesses across the U.S. Sue has over twelve years experience as a professional designer and is an Adobe Certified Expert and Adobe Certified Instructor teaching courses in Photoshop, Dreamweaver and Illustrator at Noble Desktop in New York City. In addition, she is the author of several ‘For Dummies’ instructional books on Web Design, Dreamweaver, and Illustrator, and is the software instructor in four ClassOnDemand Adobe Training DVDs.

Books by Sue Jenkins:
How To Do Everything Illustrator CS4, McGraw-Hill
Web Design For Dummies All-in-One Desk Reference, Wiley
Dreamweaver CS4 For Dummies All-in-One Desk Reference, Wiley
Web Design: The L-Line, The Express Line to Learning, Wiley
Dreamweaver 8 For Dummies All-in-One Desk Reference, Wiley

DVDs featuring Sue Jenkins:
Designer’s Guide to Illustrator DVD, Class On Demand
Designer’s Guide to Photoshop DVD, Class On Demand
Dreamweaver For Designers DVD, Class On Demand
Fundamentals of Adobe Photoshop Elements DVD, Class On Demand

Note: This article by Sue Jenkins first appeared in the Graphic Artists Guild’s Guild News, Sept/Oct 2009 issue.