Ever since my morning with Cathy I have been practising layers in Photoshop and I am improving although I acknowledge that what I think is brilliant is probably beginner stuff for a lot of people. Nevertheless, my enthusiasm is high so I've been making up some textured backgrounds to use with my hand drawn images or photos. Whilst I was doing that I came across something called the bokeh effect, again new to me but old hat for some I'm sure. I followed this link and made a lens cover for my camera exactly like the one in the photo above but as you can see I have not achieved the bokeh effect. What is it? Well, it is a photograph where the foreground objects are in sharp relief with the background, which in turn is all hazy and lovely. The heart shape lens is meant to create lots of little hearts in the background of the photo like twinkly lights.... not one blobby shape like I've achieved. Now it's either because my camera is not a DSLR (it's a halfway between type camera) or it's because we've had no decent light since last week here and you need strong contrasts of foreground and background for it to work.
These are the best of my experiments . The ones with the spots are random photos of a piece of fabric I compost dyed a long time ago. It's lying on the table waiting to be used for something after I retrieved it from a box last week so it was handy to photograph but it looks more like specimens under a microscope rather than anything else. I need to go back to the drawing board to crack this technique but there is no sign of the sun coming out here anytime soon so I'm off to practise more Photoshop but watch this space. I have to try this bokeh effect again and if anyone has done so successfully please tell me how!!
9 comments:
I've created bokeh more by accident than design, but I think it helps to have things a bit further off in the background, and the foreground things quite close. The background objects need to be far enough away to be out of focus. I like the heart shapes you've created, anyway. You'll be trying tilt shift next!
2.22 in the morning (the rain has woken me) and I can't sleep so I have come on here.... these are lovely images, Lesley, and I particularly like that bottom one. It would make a lovely card. I love seeing where your mind takes you..............
You've lost me technically as soon as you mentioned photoshop... and I rather like those blobby shapes! Looks very clever to me.
I love the Lesley-bokeh effect and think those hearts are just beautiful - especially the fabric ones. What a fascinating little adventure-path you have started down, I would never have thought of it in a million years. I hope you get the layering thing down pat - I have forgotten how and get mightily frustrated whenever I go in and try - always in a rush or hurry. Sigh. Keep experimenting and having fun I say.
Lesley - bokeh effects usually occur when you have a shallow depth of field - this means having a your lens aperture wide open by using a small f.number and focussing on something in the foreground. This will put the background out of focus and if there are points of light and dark, you my get the sequin bokeh effect. These circles are formed by the shape of the lens and sometimes appear as polygons formed by the iris aperture in the lens. On flikr good 'bokeh' is always commented on, and although everyone loves the little sequin sparkles , I think in theory any out of focus colour/light effect is technically bokeh. Hope this makes sense, my brain is still suffering from being out of focus with no pretty effects!
I think you need some sharpe spots of bright light eg street lights from distance, fairy lights, light through dark tree branches, raindrops on a window. Your experiments create a 3D pillow effect - interesting.
As others have said, I had a flickr photo where someone commented on the great bokeh - I had no idea what it was and it was purely accidental. But Jill's guidance, as always, is spot on if you're trying to do it deliberately. I love the heart-shaped things anyhow!
This all sounds too technical for me at the moment but I'm enjoying reading about your journey and interesting results, well done!
Just catching up with this late. I like the bokeh hocus pocus. Had never come across the word before. I like it! I like the mysterious hearts too. Very intriguing and lots more distance to go with this experimentation too. I await further reports with interest.
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