Step By step Give backgrounds a Glimmer

Combine a summer portrait with a bokeh effect to transform dull-looking backgrounds

01 Duplicate the background

Grab the Crop tool and, with Use Photo Ratio selected, crop out some of the grass at the bottom of the frame. Hit Ctrl+j to duplicate the ‘background’ layer and rename it ‘tidy’. We will work on this layer to remove skin imperfections and stray strands of hair.

02 tidy up

Grab the Spot Healing Brush tool, set to Content Aware, and paint over strands of hair and spots to remove them. Select the Clone Stamp tool and set a low opacity of around 20%. Alt-click to copy an area of clear, pale skin and paint under eyes to reduce bags.

03 Dodge and burn

Grab the Dodge tool, set Range to Midtones and Exposure to 20%, and paint over the eyes to brighten them and the face to lighten it up a tad. Add a Levels adjustment layer, with Midtones 0.42, to darken the image. With the mask selected, grab a black brush.

04 open bokeh backdrop

Set brush opacity to 100% and paint over the face and hand, reduce opacity to 50% and paint over hair and jumper to blend. Open sparkle_start2.jpg, hit Ctrl+a to select it, Ctrl+c to copy and go back to the portrait window and hit Ctrl+v to paste as a new layer.

05 change blending mode

Rename the layer ‘Bokeh’, resize it with the Transform tool to cover the portrait, and set Blending Mode to Overlay. Alt-click between this and the adjustment layer below to ‘clip’ them; the bokeh will only appear in the white areas on the mask of the adjustment layer.

06 Finishing touches

Highlight the ‘Bokeh’ layer, hold Alt and hover the cursor between this layer and the Levels adjustment layer until a small box and arrow appear, click to clip the layer. To finish, add a Photo Filter adjustment layer and set Filter to Deep Blue and set Density to 15%.