Jump right to the overlays. Bokeh is this beautiful effect achieved by having lights in the background or foreground of an image being blurred up to the point of obtaining just soft circles of color.
It's easiest to obtain beautiful bokeh when taking photographs using a wide-open aperture for a very shallow depth of field where the background and/or foreground gets really blurred-up.
Download free bokeh stock video footage and motion graphics with 4k and HD clips available. Explore over 844 high quality clips to use on your next personal or commercial project. Click here to download royalty-free licensing videos from Videvo today. Free Bokeh Video - treetablet. Download All 7,349 “bokeh” stock videos unlimited times with a single Envato Elements subscription. All from independent designers.
Choose from 99 Free Bokeh Stock Videos to download. Lens flares from the sun through the out-of-focus trees. Flashes of light in the lens, seeing the sunlight passing through the leaves of the trees, with the blue sky in the background, in an unfocused view. 5,672 Best Bokeh Effect Free Video Clip Downloads from the Videezy community. Free Bokeh Effect Stock Video Footage licensed under creative commons, open source, and more! Find the best free bokeh background videos. Free Download HD or 4K Use all videos for free for your projects.
Oftentimes you won't be able to capture the bokeh that you would have wanted straight in camera. There's an easy fix for that, just add it afterward as an overlay to the image! To help with this, I've prepared a collection of 220 free bokeh overlays that you can use in Photoshop. These were created by taking real photographs, so that will have this real organic feel to them.
I'd love to see what you create using these overlays. Getin touch with me here to show me your finished photos! 📷
Bokeh Overlay Usage Example
Here's the summary of the steps I've taken to add the overlay:
- Added my overlay as a new layer.
- Converted the layer to a smart object.
- Rotated and resized the layer so that it falls at the right place for the photo.
- Applied at slight gaussian blur to the overlay layer.
- Added a Hue/Saturation adjustment layer, clipped to the overlay layer so that it only affects the overlay. I checked theColorize option and I selected a Hue value that approximates the color of the eye makeup.
And here's a screenshot that should help illustrate those steps:
Using the Bokeh Overlays
I wrote up a post about how to use texture overlays in Photoshop. Very similar principles apply to using these bokeh overlays. You'll add the overlay as a new layer on top of your image and then change the layer blend mode to Screen. You can apply a gaussian blur to the overlay layer to make the bokeh more diffuse and blurry. And you also can apply a hue/saturation adjustment layer clipped to the overlay layer to change the overall hue (color) of the overlay.
Pro tip: Don't mind the color
When choosing the perfect bokeh overlay for your photo, don't worry too much about the color of the bokeh. You can pretty easily colorize the overlay layer using Photoshop and have it be the color that you want. What you'll want to pay most attention to is the size and distribution of the bokeh in the overlay.
Free Bokeh Video Effect
Also remember that you can easily add more than one overlay to an image. You can use the same one at multiple places, erase part of one, rotate them, resize them... The sky is the limit! ☁️
Free Photoshop Bokeh Overlays
Below you can see thumbnails for the 220 Free Bokeh overlays. Just click on any of the thumbnails to download a full high resolution version of the overlay.
License
You're free to use these bokeh overlay images for both personal and commercial projects. No attribution needed. However, if want to give Purple11 some love, it would mean a lot to me if you shared the word! 😊You cannot sublicense, resell, share, transfer, or otherwise redistribute these overlays.
Add a festive touch to your designs with this pack of free design elements, including free bokeh overlays. Learn how to use them in your design with a guided video tutorial.
No matter what time of year, there’s always a reason to celebrate, whether it’s a birthday, a special holiday, or just simply because. These free celebration overlays are here to help you celebrate. With free bokeh, light flares, confetti and glitter you can add serious shine to your party invites, photos, and more.
What’s Included in This Pack of Celebration Assets
This pack is meant to add a subtle shimmer to any of your designs. From dreamy bokeh overlays to sparkly confetti clouds, these are the perfect elements to lift up any of your creations.
Your free design pack includes 20 image files inJPG format. You can easily drag them onto any photo or design, and use blend modes and other effects to merge them seamlessly.
In this pack of 20 celebration elements, you’ll get…
- Whimsical bokeh
- Soft light flares
- Bursts of colorful confetti
- Sparkly clouds of glitter
Download Let’s Celebrate! 20 Free Bokeh and Light Overlays
Downloading your free party design assets is simple; just click on the button below to initiate the download. Once you’ve downloaded the pack, follow along with our video tutorial below to see how to can add these elements to your design in Photoshop and other applications.
These elements are free to use in any personal or commercial projects. By downloading this free texture pack, you agree not to resell or redistribute these assets.
How to Use Your Celebration Assets
Not sure how to use these free assets? Follow along with this video tutorial, which shows you how to use the assets in Photoshop to create an invitation, or simply to add some interest to photos. You can also keep reading to see these quick tutorials broken down in writing.
Use Free Bokeh Overlays with Blend Modes
We’ll start by adding bokeh effects over your photos with blending modes. To start, you’ll need a photo. You can use one of your own, or find a photo that works really well with bokeh. These soft circles of light look good on any photo, but we really like them on wintery landscapes, wedding season moments, or images of summer nights on the beach. It also looks great on portraits, so we’ll use one as an example.
When you find the right image, open it up in Photoshop. To place the bokeh image on top of your image, go to file, place embedded, then find your freebie file.
Go to blending styles to experiment with what works best for your photos. Every photo and design combination will be different so play around and see what works for you. My favorite blend modes for these bokeh overlays are light, screen, and color dodge.
You can do this effect with either landscape photos or with your portraits. If you do put these effects on top of your portraits, then you may need to do further customization.
In this example, you can see the bokeh effect is covering her face. In order to erase some this, you’ll need to rasterize this smart object. You can do this by selecting the brush tool. Once the tool is selected, click anywhere on the image and you’ll have the option to rasterize.
Be sure your colors are set to default foreground and background colors which means black should be on top of white.
You can choose different brush options depending on the specific needs of the photo. Turn your brush opacity to 75% to get a more natural effect. Then click and drag where you want to get rid of the bokeh design.
Use Free Confetti Overlays on a Greeting Card
The confetti and glitter overlays included in this celebration pack are great fits for any kind of party design, from invitations to menus and party favors. You can download all sorts of invitation and greeting card templates from Shutterstock, or even make your own invitation in Shutterstock Editor. Need some inspiration? Check out these 21 tips to create the best invitation ever.
Once you have your greeting card designed, place this design asset on top of it by going to file, then place embedded. You want to make sure to put this confetti image is on top of your entire design.
Then select the magic wand tool. Put your tolerance at about 20 and make sure contiguous is not selected.
With the magic wand tool selected, click anywhere on the white background of your confetti image. Now that it’s selected, we’re going to rasterize this smart object by selecting the eraser tool and clicking ok. Now you can press delete on your keyboard and the entire white background will be deleted.
Create Festive Text with a Clipping Mask
You can also add some interest to plain text with these design elements. This is a really simple but effect way to catch attention, and it would look great for any kind of big announcement on your social media feed.
Free Bokeh Background Video
First, start by opening up a new document. You can add a colored background by adding a colored rectangle shape. Add your text on top of your background layer. You can then align your text by selecting your text, then clicking “align vertical centers” and “align horizontal centers” in your alignment panel.
Place your design texture on top of your text later by going to file, place embedded. Once you have your texture placed into your file, hold down alt or option on your keyboard while hovering between your texture and text layer in your layers panel. Once you see an arrow with a box to the right, click while still holding down alt or option. Your texture will now be clipped inside your text.
You can select the texture layer and move it around, make it larger or smaller until you reach your desired result.
These are just a few examples of what you can do with these design freebies. Feel free to use these techniques with any other design projects that you dream up. Have fun and get creative with your spirited photos and designs.
Interested in the tracks we used to make this video?
Free Bokeh Effect Video
- “Yellow Jackets” by Flash Fluharty
- “Sand & Sunset” Cymatix
- “Travel Memories” by Vincent Tone
- “Sunny Destination” by Vincent Tone
Looking for more tutorials? Check these out.
Top image by simona pilolla 2