Episode 8: Photoshopping Digital Bokeh

In photography, bokeh is one of the most incredible implementations of Aperture, as seen in this inspiring collection. The shallow depth of field causes any light in the background to blur into a floating orb.
In this tutorial, we go through how to create bokeh using Photoshop, with simply beautiful results.

Bokeh is derived from the Japanese word ‘Boke’ which means blur or haze. In the late 1990s though, when ‘boke’ photography was becoming popular, the word was changed to ‘bokeh’ to help us english speaking people say it properly.

I honestly believe this is one of the greatest tutorials on PhotoGuides to date, partly because it shows you how to create such a beautiful image, but also because it opens peoples eyes to the power of the brushes engine, and this demonstration can expand peoples abilities on Photoshop enormously.

The method I teach in this tutorial was originally developed by abduzeedo. When I was experimenting with how to create digital bokeh, I felt their tutorial showed the best way to do it, and thus decided to simply share their method in the podcast (with permission of course), so thanks for letting me share it.

As usual, the Photoshop source file and a high quality download of this tutorial is available for free to all PhotoGuides members.
You can also download the digital bokeh image from the tutorial as a wallpaper over here in the freebies section.

Good luck!