Images with blurred backgrounds are aesthetically pleasing. They concentrate the focus on the key object or particular area, making it the center of attention; meanwhile, the blurred background creates the depth of atmosphere. This technique is called the “Bokeh” effect and it is widely used by professionals. This effect can be applied to all genres of photos.
The Bokeh effect is created with a fast lens, at the widest aperture – f/2.8 or wider, or with a long focal length. However, such details are only comprehensible for those who use the camera professionally, with a clear understanding of how all the functions work.
In our day and age, everyone is a photographer with a smartphone camera at our disposal any minute we see something nice. However, we often lack fundamental knowledge of photography and equipment, which is negatively influencing the quality of the picture. Luckily, there are a lot of applications in the market, which offer the best solutions for photo editing, including blurred backgrounds.
Artificial blur has lots of functions:
- Removing noise and dust;
- Smoothing skin tone (depending on the part of the day) in a portrait;
- De-emphasizing some elements, so that the key objects stand out;
- Hiding dirt, and wrinkles in the background.
We have selected the best apps with the highest ratings and compared all the functions they provide their users with. Let’s have a look.
1. VistaCreate
VistaCreate offers a multitude of functions you can use to edit photos. You can crop, flip, color, and blur background online with the quality of a real camera shot. It supports the most common formats like img, png, and jpg., allowing you to download the newly-created image and put it to further use.
Blur effect requires certain skills with the camera, yet with VistaCreate everything is quite easy and intuitive.
Apart from basic photo-editing functions, VistaCreate offers a great deal of choice for further image management – adding music to the photos, and creating ads, logos, leaflets, and cards with the available templates. Yet another plus is the possibility to work with numerous photos simultaneously, so there is no need to waste time on every single photo.
When setting up a free account, you get access to an immense platform for making creative content.
2. Adobe Lightroom
Adobe products have excelled in photo editing and manipulation. Lightroom is a classic software for photo editing. It is supported on Windows, macOS, iOS, Android, and tvOS. Lightroom is a non-destructive editor, so it will not use the original file, creating a copy at once. It offers an extensive list of editing tools and covers all the major basics: brightness, sharpness, color adjustments, rotation, blurring effect, etc. The feature that we like the most is the ability to apply local edits, so that you adjust certain parts of the photo, leaving the rest untouched.
3. AfterFocus
One of the efficient apps for creating a blurred background. It lets the user blur the background, zoom the main object, and add some motion and lens effects. Apart from editing uploaded photos, you can take photos through the app. AfterFocus is available on both Android and iOS.
4. Snapseed
Another helpful app to create a blurred background. It is developed by Google, so the quality of the results is undoubtful.
Apart from blurring, Snapseed offers color-related changes, making the final image look the way you wanted.
5. Cymera
Another user-friendly application, that offers a variety of blurring options, blur filters in particular. You can also use plenty of other editing options to work with the color, size, and composition of the photo.
The layout is user-friendly for both iOS and Android.
6. Pixaloop
Pixaloop is a practical application, which offers professional solutions even for beginners. Every photo-editing experience will turn into an advanced one. It helps to focus on the main objects and apply multiple styles of blur effect – radical, mirror, and linear.
The procedure of background blurring is typically the same, and effortless:
- Install the app.
- Upload the photo (or photos).
- Chose the “blur” option in the list of effects.
- Select the area to put focus on.
- Save the result.
Regardless of the aim, blurred background helps to enhance the photo, and emphasize the main object – instead of a scattered vision, to see everything, a person concentrates on the key point. With the blurred background, photos become more appealing and catchy, attracting more attention from the viewer.
The blur or ‘bokeh’ effect can be created using professional equipment and knowledge, or by using a specific application. When choosing the right one, make sure its functions go beyond blurring, as it will help to perform all the photo processing, from the beginning to the end.