What is a bokeh, and why would you want to create it in your images? The term comes from the Japanese word that means "blur" or "fuzzy" and refers to the out-of-focus area in a photograph. Some definitions of the term say this blurry area in your photo is created by camera lens. I'm here to tell you that if you lack camera skills, or a really great lens for that matter, you can get this same effect during post-processing. The photo shown here is of my daughter playing in the faucet water in the late afternoon light. The original image (below) was definitely a cute shot, but it didn't really stand out. I loved the interesting stone sidewalk she was standing on and the cool water drops, but the photo was just too busy. Instead, I wanted just my daughter standing there in the awesome light to be the first thing viewers noticed about the image and the thing their eyes would keep coming back to (photo above). I have seen many great examples of good bokeh on Flickr and wanted to see if I could create it for this image after the fact (this is usually something you try to achieve through your camera lens and focus). I do not have the camera skills (yet) to do this, but I do have a small amount of skill in photo editing. You at home really need neither to do this yourself. It's so easy to do in any photo editing software, anyone could try it. Read on to find out how to create bokeh in your images in five easy steps. First, find an image that has one main focal point. Having a background (or foreground) that is pretty consistently the same throughout helps, too. Second, open your image in any photo editing software. I used Gimp (because hey! it's free!), but you can use Photoshop, too. Third, simply make an outline of the portion of your photo that you want in focus using the lasso tool. Be as detailed as you want with the outline, but don't worry too much about your freehand skills. You might get a little bit of the halo look around the in-focus portion, but I tend to think it gives your images a warm, fuzzy feel. Fourth, after you've outlined your image with the lasso, click copy and then paste. In Gimp, this will give you a floating selection (pasted layer). You simply need to click "create new layer" and your copied selection will be inserted into the new layer. In Photoshop, it will create a new layer automatically when you click paste. Make sure these two layers are lined up in your image. Fifth, select the background layer and, under the filters tab, click blur and then Glaussian Blur. Set it to a number no lower than 30 for a dramatic blur in your background. You'll want to play around with it to see what works best with your particular image. Now just flatten your image and save it (see another example below). This technique is so easy, and it's a really fun way to make an ordinary photo a little more dramatic or to just give it that extra pop. Remember, post-processing can be just as fun as actually taking the photo. If at first you try and you don't succeed -- edit, baby!