Portrait Bokeh AI

When capturing photos, placing the area behind a subject out of focus is often desirable. The Japanese word bokeh is used to describe the aesthetic nature of the blur produced in these out-of-focus areas. Traditionally, to achieve this effect, it often takes a high-quality lens and involves shooting at a wide-open aperture like ƒ2.0.

Luminar Neo offers the Portrait BokehAI Tool to simulate this effect and allow it to be used on most portrait photos. It works on any portrait image – regardless of the lens used or the lighting conditions.

Amount

When you adjust this slider, artificial intelligence recognizes people in the frame, including those in groups or unusual positions, and creates an initial mask that separates them from the background. Then, by moving this slider, you adjust the amount of blur in the background.

Brush Control

In most cases, the initial mask created by the Amount slider is ready to use. If you want to refine the initial mask, use these controls. This can be useful to refine complex masks, for example, adding an object held in your portrait subject’s hands.

These brushes refine the mask:

• Focus. Used to define the active area of the mask. The parts of the image that are selected will remain in focus.

• Defocus. Used to identify areas as the background and to remove focus in this area.

• Restore. Painting with this brush reverts back to the original automatically generated mask in the areas where a stroke is applied. It is useful if you want to restore an area to the default selection that was originally created.

Tip: What is masked? To quickly see your mask when painting, it will become visible as you brush. If you’d like the mask visibility to stay active, just press the / (forward slash) key to view the mask. The ruby lith (red) areas are set to be in Focus. The transparent areas are able to be blurred and represent the Defocus area.

These controls refine the brush you use to refine your mask.

• Radius. Adjusts the size of your brush.

• Softness. Adjusts the softness of the effect by feathering the edges of the brush.

• Opacity. Sets the opacity of the brush.

Useful mask shortcuts

You can use these handy keyboard shortcuts to make painting your mask easier.

[	Decrease the brush radius
]	Increase the brush radius
Shift + [	Decrease the brush softness
Shift + ]	Increase the brush softness
X	Toggle between Focus and Defocus mode when editing

Background

The Background controls help you refine the quality of the bokeh or background blur. These are essential controls to be adjusted to match your personal taste.

• Brightness. Controls the overall exposure of the background. You can lighten or darken the background to further offset your subject.

• Highlights Glow. Adjusts the brightness of the brightest areas of the background, adding a soft glow.

• Warmth. Refine the color temperature of the background by adjusting the amount. A negative value will cool the image by adding a blue tone, and a positive value will warm the image by adding a gold tone.

• Depth Correction. Controls where the out-of-focus area begins in a photo. Moving this slider to the left sets it closer to the camera and moves it further away to the right. As a result, the bokeh effect appears stronger or weaker.

• Edges Correction. Used to expand or contract the soft edges of the mask; helpful in adjusting the fine details in a mask, like hair.