Best way to mimic Bokeh

[UFWHOA]

I was just thinking about it, since i don't have a dSLR camera to adjust aperture settings manually, how to create a convincing Bokeh effect.

Does anybody have any ideas as far as various methods and plugins that would be great for creating realistic bokeh to a photo?

I was even thinking about creating a "Bokeh" brush and use layer blend modes to apply the effect.

[Mike Ryan]

Use cutting out images the easy way to take out the portions of the image you want to remain sharp and then apply Fragment at a large distance.

[Ash]

Plugins & Effects you need to try:

Focal Point viewtopic.php?f=16&t=22919

Gradient Blur viewtopic.php?f=16&t=20884

Fragment effect- Built into the PDN3.30 and up.

There will be a Lens blur later on too.

Tutorials you should checkout:

viewtopic.php?f=15&t=2756

viewtopic.php?f=15&t=4841

[UFWHOA]

just an update, I tried out the Erode/Dilate plugin effect and it works great. I'd have to tweak the photo to make it look more realistic as far as blending properly especially if I using just one photograph with the subject in it because the subjust spreads in the photo too, which ruins the depth-of-field effect. But this works excellent if taking a photograph of the subject and another of the background and applying the effect to the background and blending the subject smoothly into the background.

But yeah, Erode/Dilate plugin looks pretty close to a "natural" bokeh.

[MiguelPereira]

There will be a Lens blur later on too.

What?