bokeh tutorial #2
Bokeh Tutorial #2: Toy Camera
Theory: Toy cameras are all the rage, but there is no need to go out and get a holga or lomo, it can be done digitally with a few clicks in Bokeh.
Objective: Blur an image in a way it looks like it was taken with a toy.
Carlos and Liz are well isolated in this picture, but it's just too clean for me. Lets first use Bokeh to simulate a plastic lens.
Figure 1a: Our original picture, what a handsome couple.
Figure 1b: We needn't use Bokeh to always blur the background, indeed, this effect is designed to blur our subject and simulate a medium format toy camera with very narrow focus and distortion in the lens. The selection is an easy one. I tend to stick with the old portrait rule of the eyes being the point of focus, and then everything else is relatively inconsequential. Since this photo had a little too much depth of field for my taste, I thought it best to use Bokeh to soften things up. Bokeh at 20% with Nonagon as the shape. You can see the rest of the settings and the selection in Figure 1b.
Figure 2: The compressed sense of scale is nice, but this photo is still too clean for my taste. Time to add a texture.
Figure 3: Almost any distressed metal texture can work, but I use this copper one for a lot of my photos. Just drag it on top of the photo by using the (V) move tool.
Figure 4: Changing the texture layer to soft light gives us this. Dirty! I like it. We are almost there.
Figure 5: A few strokes of the history brush to peel back the blotches from the texture on the faces of my subjects, then washed in Alien Skin's Exposure 2, Fuji FPC (magenta cast).
As you can see, this really took less than five minutes, and you don't have to wait for the developer to get you your prints.
Theory: Toy cameras are all the rage, but there is no need to go out and get a holga or lomo, it can be done digitally with a few clicks in Bokeh.
Objective: Blur an image in a way it looks like it was taken with a toy.
Carlos and Liz are well isolated in this picture, but it's just too clean for me. Lets first use Bokeh to simulate a plastic lens.
Figure 1a: Our original picture, what a handsome couple.
Figure 1b: We needn't use Bokeh to always blur the background, indeed, this effect is designed to blur our subject and simulate a medium format toy camera with very narrow focus and distortion in the lens. The selection is an easy one. I tend to stick with the old portrait rule of the eyes being the point of focus, and then everything else is relatively inconsequential. Since this photo had a little too much depth of field for my taste, I thought it best to use Bokeh to soften things up. Bokeh at 20% with Nonagon as the shape. You can see the rest of the settings and the selection in Figure 1b.
Figure 2: The compressed sense of scale is nice, but this photo is still too clean for my taste. Time to add a texture.
Figure 3: Almost any distressed metal texture can work, but I use this copper one for a lot of my photos. Just drag it on top of the photo by using the (V) move tool.
Figure 4: Changing the texture layer to soft light gives us this. Dirty! I like it. We are almost there.
Figure 5: A few strokes of the history brush to peel back the blotches from the texture on the faces of my subjects, then washed in Alien Skin's Exposure 2, Fuji FPC (magenta cast).
As you can see, this really took less than five minutes, and you don't have to wait for the developer to get you your prints.