{"id":736,"date":"2020-09-08T12:01:16","date_gmt":"2020-09-08T12:01:16","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.textures4photoshop.com\/blog\/?p=736"},"modified":"2020-09-08T13:17:45","modified_gmt":"2020-09-08T13:17:45","slug":"blurred-photo-background","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.textures4photoshop.com\/blog\/blurred-photo-background\/","title":{"rendered":"How to Get The Perfect Blurred Photo Background"},"content":{"rendered":"

In this post I will show you how to set your camera to get perfectly blurred photo background every time.<\/p>\n

Ideally, you already have a DSLR camera, but a compact or even a phone camera will also work. Once you learn how to set your camera to control your photos background blur, you will have to experiment and see what you like and what you don’t like.<\/p>\n

Let’s get started!<\/p>\n

What is a BOKEH in photography?<\/h2>\n

If you are into photography, for sure you’ve heard the term bokeh <\/em>(with slight variances pronounced boh-kay<\/em>).<\/p>\n

But, what is bokeh?<\/p>\n

\"Photography<\/a>
Bokeh Examples<\/a><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

In short, bokeh refers to how out of focus<\/strong> points of lights are rendered in a photo. So, you might say that the blurred background of a photo is the photo’s bokeh. Keep this in mind, as this is important: blur means out of focus.<\/p>\n

If you want to read more about this, there’s an entire Wikipedia page dedicated to bokeh<\/a>.<\/p>\n

The bokeh effect is very widely used for it’s aesthetic value, especially for portraits. The trick there is to get your subject in focus and the background out of focus, therefore creating a nice separation and drawing attention to your subject.<\/p>\n

But more on this below.<\/p>\n

Simple bokeh camera settings<\/h2>\n

If you’ve looked at our bokeh textures<\/a> examples and other like the great collection of free bokeh lights textures<\/a> from PSDDude, you are probably wondering:<\/p>\n

How can I make my own photo bokeh textures? It’s quite simple, follow these steps:<\/p>\n

    \n
  1. Find a subject with lights. Street lights will work or even better a Christmas led light rope. The more sources of light in your frame, the more interesting your bokeh texture will be.<\/li>\n
  2. Set your camera on manual focus and set the focus either to the minimum, or to the maximum.<\/li>\n
  3. Set your aperture to the maximum (lowest f-number) that your lens will allow<\/li>\n
  4. Adjust your shutter speed for a correct exposure<\/li>\n
  5. Shoot!<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n

    \"Golden<\/a><\/p>\n

    This will work each and every time. Please note that different lenses will render different bokeh effects.<\/p>\n

    You can even do this with phone. Most phones today will allow you to go into manual focus mode. If you can do that then it’s just a matter of finding the right subject.<\/p>\n

    How to set your camera for background bokeh?<\/h2>\n

    When you take a photo, you usually decide on a point of focus. The point of focus will be the point in your photo with the maximum amount of sharpness.<\/p>\n

    Here’s what you have to know,<\/p>\n

    There is a distance range from your focus point that will appear in focus, while everything outside of this range will appear out of focus, or blurred. The range that appears in focus is called the depth of field.<\/p>\n

    It’s easy to control the depth of field, simply by adjusting the f-number (aperture). A lower f-number (wider aperture) will render a narrower depth of field – so more blur in the background of the photo.<\/p>\n

    A higher f-number (small aperture) will render a less blurry photo background.<\/p>\n

    Let’s see an example:<\/p>\n

    \"Blurred<\/p>\n

    For this test I’ve used the following camera, lens and settings:<\/p>\n