Want To Make Your Photos Look Worse? Try Bokeh Booth
Bokeh Booth ($0.99) by Mad Dog Software is a photography app that promises to add the “bokeh” effect to your images.
In a photograph, the bokeh is the blur in an out-of-focus area in an image. It is an effect generally created when the lens renders unfocused points of light in the background of an image. While bokeh does not have to involve light at all, it commonly occurs at light sources.
To begin using the app, you select a photo from your iPhone’s photo library. You cannot take a photo and apply the effect that way, as the app is strictly for post-processing.
When your photo is selected, you can choose the bokeh that you want to use. There are 15 different shapes to choose from, ranging from circles and hearts to space invaders and smiley faces. At this menu, you’re also able to adjust the strength of the effect, choosing between low, medium, and high. High will create more bokeh on your image, while low creates far fewer.
After you’ve chosen the shape and the number of bokeh you want, your image is processed and the bokeh effect shows up pasted over your photo. It’s basically just an overall blur and a bunch of opaque spots in whatever shape you’ve chosen.
From here, you use your finger to erase the effect from the parts of the image where you do not want it. You can also zoom in for more precise control. Unfortunately, at no point are you able to change the size of the light effects, so it’s very difficult to get a picture that looks decent.
In the settings section, you can turn off the sound and the “data collection” setting. I’m not sure what this is, what it does, or what it’s doing in this app, but based on the name, I shut it off.
You can also change some of the output options with an on/off switch: crop blurred edges, lower intensity, and large output. The lower intensity creates a faded effect, while the large output lets you save a higher resolution image.
Your images can be saved to the Photo Album, or shared with friends on Evernote, Facebook, Tumblr, and Twitter.
In photography, Bokeh is often a desirable quality in an image. Bokeh Booth in no way resembles a true bokeh effect. The spots of light are not in the correct proportions for an iPhone photo, and I was not able to make any images that looked even remotely decent.
My created images looked even worse when I emailed them, due to the amateurish blurring applied to the entire photo, which could not be erased in a way that provided the proper blending. Also, the working area is so small that it’s hard to manipulate your photos. At the very least, this app needs a full screen mode.
My photos made with Bokeh Booth looked a lot more like I had taken a blurry photo with a dirty lens. This app cannot produce true depth of field, though it could do a more passable job if the size of the light effect was adjustable. I also believe that it would be far better to paint on the effect, rather than paint it off.
I should be able to pick the specific areas where I want the effect applied. For example, I have a picture with a ferris wheel in the background, and it would be an acceptable use of the app to blur this specific area and add small spots of light, but that isn’t possible.
I did not find that Bokeh Booth produced acceptable photographs in any way, and would not recommend it unless you just want to slap a bunch of translucent hearts and smiley faces on your pictures.
