Clone tool, Bokeh & Photo Filters

I started writing tutorial on how handy the clone tool can be, using this photo as an example. It's taken me forever to write it for some reason but I'm glad it did becdause the very talented Ashley Sisk recently posted an amazing tutorial on how to create a "fairy garden" effect.  And then I thought "That is a perfect tutorial to go along with mine!" So make sure to go check her tutorial out!

I've always wanted to have a bokeh overlay/texture that I could turn to, whenever I wanted to add it to a photo.

This is the photo I started out with. It had bokeh on only half of the photo, which isn't bad but I wanted a large enough file that I could use on practically any size photo.

So to do this, you'll need to have a photo that already has some bokeh.

I used my clone tool to create the same bokeh effect on the entire photo.

1. Choose your clone tool
2. You'll probably want to adjust the brush options at the top to the desired size and opacity. This will vary depending on what you are trying to clone.
3. To select the area you want to copy from, move the mouse to the area you want to duplicate and press the Alt key while clicking on the exact area you want to copy.
4. From here you will simply click and drag over the part of the image you want to change.
   Make sure to try out different brush settings to get the effect you want.

There will be a lot of trial and error involved but keep at it! 

Here is my completed filled in bokeh image.

Now that this is done I am going to save it and use it on an image.  For the image I am using I needed the bokeh layer to be a little warmer. So I use my photo filters to warm it up a bit. Have you used Photo filters? They are awesome!!

Image> Adjustments > Photo Filter

 

From here I chose the warming filter. You can change the density to your liking!

 
But let's say I was adding this bokeh overlay to a cooler photo? And the brownish bokeh background didn't quite fit the color scheme of the image.

A cooling filter would be perfect in this case.

  

Here is the before and after of my leaf photo with the bokeh texture that I made.

Not a huge difference but enough to give it a sparkly feeling. I've chosen to erase the bokeh off of the grass/leaves and only leave it in the background. But, to achieve the effect that Ashley was talking about, you'll want to keep the layer in front of the image.

You can download these bokeh textures from my flickr, if you'd like.
Download them HERE.