Alien Skin Bokeh

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The word ‘bokeh’ derives from the Japanese word for blur, and that’s just what this filter is all about. Alien Skin has researched the way some of the most expensive lenses from the Canon L Series, Carl Zeiss, Nikon and Sony Zeiss render blur at specific aperture settings. Bokeh stimulates the depth-of-field and focus effects of these lenses, so you can achieve the same look without actually having to shell out for any expensive glass.

Available for both Mac and PC, the interface is split between three tabs – Settings, Bokeh and Vignette. The settings tab is where the software pre-sets are chosen at blur percentages of 20% or 50%. Within this setting you can choose the lens whose effect you’d like to emulate at a pre-set aperture. To take the effect further you then have to navigate to the Bokeh tab. Here you can control the bokeh – the overall level of blur. You can apply blur to the entire image, regions of it or selections you have previously made in Photoshop. None produces an all over blur – Radial produces graduated blur and Planar produces a circular area of blur. The final tab, Vignette, is used for creating vignette effects.

Alien Skin’s Bokeh is the type of software that helps to fix images shot with the incorrect settings. As always, getting things right at the shooting stage is important, but this isn’t always possible. Bokeh allows more control over blur than lens blur filters in some other programs, and also provides a wider range of lens blur styles. The main downside to the software is that to apply it successfully you have to be pretty good at creating selections in Photoshop. This is an interesting plug-in that’s highly specialist, and at £114 you really have to be sure that you’ll use it enough to justify the purchase.