Experiment with Heart Bokeh Textures
by Jen White
When browsing through emails the other day, I came across an offer for free “heart bokeh textures.”
My first thought was, “Sounds like something I NEED!”
A nano second later (maybe a little more), I was downloading the mysterious “textures” and spending the afternoon with my new toys. I had a great time and thought I might as well drag you along to the party. Let me get you started. . . .
Download the Heart Bokeh Textures
• Go to: http://gloeckchen.deviantart.com/art/Heart-Bokeh-Textures-110665615
• Click on the Download button. Here’s where to find it:
ATTENTION: The file will download as a zipped RAR file. If your computer doesn’t know what to do with RAR files (my Mac had no problems with the RAR file), then you can convert the RAR into a ZIP file. Here’s how to do that:
- Download the RAR file to your computer’s Desktop.
- Go to: http://www.convertfiles.com/convert/archive/RAR-to-ZIP.html
This is a free website—Convert.com—that will convert files for you. I did experience a couple pop-ups, but those are easily exited out of. - Click Browse and navigate to the RAR file on your Desktop.
- Change the Output to Zip File Archive and click Convert.
The process will take several minutes. You will see it working. When it’s finished, Convert.com give you the link to go to the download page. Click on that link.
On the download page, click on the link to download the converted file, then you are good to go.
So, what do you do with things like this? Well, just do like me—experiment. In other words, make ugly things until you come up with something you like! Let me show you some of the simple results I came up with.
Use the Textures as Paper Overlays
When I first saw these textures, my first idea was to put them on a background paper. Simple enough, right? So, here’s a paper from Everlasting Love by Studio Manu. It’s a LOVE kit, but this paper didn’t say much about “love” until I applied the texture.
Here is the paper before I applied the Heart Bokeh Texture:
And here is that same paper with the texture applied with a Blend Mode of Soft Light:
Use the Textures as Photo Overlays
Next on my list was to try these textures on some photos. What photos work best? Well, bokeh happens where there is light. So I went on a search for photos that have sunlight streaming through them.
Here is a stock photo I found that has good sunlight. This is the before image:
Here is that same image with the heart bokeh texture applied with a Blend Mode of Soft Light:
Here is a snapshot of my beautiful Addyson on a bright weekday morning. When I took this photo, my first thought was that the photo was ruined by the sun. Here’s the before:
But, I’m glad I kept the photo. I really like the result of the after photo. What little girl wouldn’t want hearts floating all around her?!? For this image, I set the Blend Mode of the texture to Color Dodge.
You just never know what you are going to get until you experiment. Give these textures a try and then stop back by to leave a link to your results. The party is just getting started. 😀
Credits:
Heart Bokeh Textures: gloeckchen at DeviantArt.com
Background paper: Everlasting Love by Studio Manu
Jogging photo: MorgueFile.com
Addyson photo: Jen White
Stop avoiding bold and busy backgrounds and start
using them with skill and confidence.
Save 15% on Taming Bold & Busy Backgrounds
_____________________________________________
Author: Jen White
All comments are moderated. Please allow time for your comment to appear. Thanks!
This is so cool!! 🙂 Love it! 🙂
Yep…. love it and I will play around with it.
This looks like so much fun…can’t wait to try it! Thanks, Jen.
Thanks for the freebie info. Can’t wait to try it.
Very neat! Thanks for sharing.
Thanks for all the cool tips Jen. You have inspired me today!!
I am blown away – never tried anything like this before, thank you sooo much!
“so little to do and so much time!” Stop. Reverse that! There is so much I want to try to do that I’m afraid that I could spend all day using these new toys and not get anything else done. Like work. ☺ Thanks, Jen, for finding these.
Thank you Jen…I will experiment with this as well. Your photos turned out great, very inspiring.
Scrapgirl (Brigitta)
Thank you so much for these adorable bokeh textures. I have downloaded them and can’t wait to start making some fun layouts with them. Thanks also for the instructions for converting this file – that is a really handy website. You rock as my grandkids would say.
Thanks Jen, I got it. Looking forward to playtime.
These heart bokeh are so cute!! Thanks for sharing. Will have fun playing with them.
Thanks, this is awesome!
I loved this when I saw it in the Digital Scrapper Newsletter and rushed to download the file. Thanks for that tip. I also want to thank you for the tip about Bokeh Textures working best on photos with light. I was not aware of that. Maybe a tutorial on using Bokeh Overlays could be developed for one of the Premier Tutorials. I’d sure like to see it.
Thank-you for this lovely bokeh and tips to use them. Thank-you also for the ‘convert files’ tip. I have never been able to download .rar files before.
Thanks so much, Jen, for the freebie link and for all the ideas on how to use them! I’m looking forward to playing!
Thank you so much, Jen, especially for the conversion instructions!
How fun!! Thanks for the info. I’m off to make a page with it.
Jen (jeneeo)
thanks so much …looking forward to using these great bokeh hearts…
This is really cool. Thanks a lot Jen. I will play with them 🙂
Using these textures as overlays creates so much depth in your photos. It almost makes them come alive. I’m going to get mine right now! THANKS FOR SHARING!
These textures are so much fun!!! Thank you
Thank you for the easy to follow directions!!!! This is one of the main reasons, though several good reasons, that I have always stayed with Digital Scrapper. YOU ARE SO GOOD AT DIRECTIONS. The Rar almost scared me away, but you did it Jen easy as pie. Thanks! Got them easy.