Bokeh Light Bubbles Effect Photoshop Tutorial
This tutorial explains how to create a bokeh underwater light bubbles effect using Photoshop.
This will include blending colours using hue and saturation and creating a really cool custom brush.
Create a new document in Photoshop with 1920×1200 pixels screen resolution . Fill the background layer with a very dark grey, not black. If you fill it with black the effect won’t work. The color I used was #151515
Select the Ellipse Tool (U), and create a circle. Use black for the color, and go to Layer>Layer Style>Blending Options. Change the Fill Opacity to 50%. After that select Stroke. Use 10 pixels for the size, Inside for the Position and Black for the color.
Select the ellipse and go to Edit>Define Brush. Name your brush and that’s done. Now we have a new brush.
Go to Window>Brushes (F5). The first thing to do in the Brush Engine is to select our new Brush. The size won’t matter because you will change that when you use it. The Spacing, however, is very important. Chage the value to 100%. After that, select the Shape Dynamics, then Scattering and Other dynamics. For the values use the image below.
Before we start painting our bubbles let’s create a new layer and fill it with a colorful gradient. I created a new layer and used the layer styles to do that but feel free to do the way you are used to.
Layer > Layer Style>Blending Options
My gradient settings are as follows: Blend Mode is Overlay, Opacity is 100%, Style is Linear, and the Angle is 40º.
The colors I used are: Blue (#0D283E), Pink (#801258).
Let’s create a new Folder in our Layer Palette. Rename the folder to Bubbles and change the Blend Mode to Color Dodge. Then create a new layer, choose white for the color and select the Brush Tool (B). Now just paint some ellipses with our custom brush. For this first layer use a big size, like 500-600px.
Go to Filter>Blur>Gaussian Blur. For this first layer use 20 pixels for the Radius.
Create another layer and paint more brushes. This time however use a smaller size for the brush. After that go to Filter>Blur>Gaussian Blur. Use 4 pixels for the Radius.
Create another layer and repeat the previous step, this time however use a much smaller brush. Apply the Gaussian Blur to this layer as well, but use only 1 pixel for the Radius.
Now just add your logo and that’s it. We have a nice wallpaper. The idea of this tutorial was once again to show the power of the Brush Engine. You can try different shapes for this same effect, like hexagons for example. Also you can play a bit with the blurs to add more depth to the final design. Now it’s up to you.
Optional: Logo Design
Create another layer and change the blending option like in the picture below. The code of the Blue color is: #7991f3
Layer > Layer Style > Blending Options > Outer Glow
Select the Brush tool and change the bubble color to #cce5fd
Be creative and fearless to do a complete mess with the shape, in my experience, the messier the better. I hope this tutorial helped you. If so, please let us know more about your artworks and drawings based on this tutorial on the comments. Thank you!
Download Wallpaper Pack
Download the Photoshop .psd File
I’m a 23-year old independent graphic artist based in Romania, Bucharest. I design beautiful, engaging user experiences and intuitive user interfaces for the web. I really love what I do. Want to hire me? Follow me on Facebook or Twitter.
Nice tut. Thanks, man.
I like your Works… :) keep up a good work.
Thank you very much for this great tutorial. Really easy to learn.
thanks for sharing..its very useful
great！
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[...] Photoshop Pros ? Bokeh Light Bubbles Effect Photoshop Tutorial – icanbeCreative [...]
doesn’t work for me I think not all the steps are there, everything is okay until Window>Brushes (F5).
i can’t define the shape into brush..
This is a great tutorial! I looked everywhere for a bokeh brush, and didn’t even think to make one myself. Thanks for the post, saved me time and effort!
Somehow that tutorial is a mess-up. The colorcode that’s supposed to be pink is orange (#e40fa5 would be pink) and the description to add a layer style (the gradient in question) on an empty (new created) layer won’t work anyway. The brush setting with ‘pen pressure’ won’t work if there’s no tablet but just a mouse, means the settings in Shape Dynamics do shit. I didn’t continue this any further.
admin edit: thank you for your observations, we fixed them.
thanks for the tutorial..I finally made a cool bokeh brush in CS5..had to wing it thru a few of the steps as they weren’t the same as stated..but it finally worked out. I see I have saved the brush in the brush amongst the PS brushes..however..I wanted to send the brush to a friend to use..but when I navigate to the brush folder for CS5, I only see the “sets” or folders of brushes that come with PS. Any ideas??? Would love to share with my photog friends. thanks
i cant create a brush(define brush is not enabled) after blending the elipse..please any one help me how to define the elipse to brush pattern
Thanks very much for sharing. I learnt a lot & great work…
Your tool to share this on twitter and fb covers the tutorial. How irritating. I love sharing great tutorials when I find them, but wish you could find somewhere to put that annoying share tool!!!
after creating the circular ellipse, PS CS5 won’t let me define the brush preset, it’s just grayed out. Any ideas?
[...] Bokeh Effect using Photoshop [...]
superb.. thanks a lot for sharing
nice good bubble
i like it
thanks
We are LogoProDesign as a Creative Logo Designer, We checked your artwork collections. Those are amazed us. Thanks for that type of good work collections. We regularly checked your website for good artwork example.
Thanks
David Thomas
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why I can’t click on ‘overlay’? :o
http://d.imagehost.org/view/0432/Bez_tytu_u
please help me ;c
interesante
boleh tau enggak?gimana cara edit seperti ini?
makasih
Why i can’t draw an ellipse tool :( how to enter it??
Could you tell me what went wrong with my procedure? My outline is completely blurred and I can’t get any white tints.
Many Thanks! You are awesome!
[...] Bokeh Light Bubbles [...]
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great tut, here’s what i came up with, work of 5 mins! http://bit.ly/c0xkMn this effect has great potential if given enough time.
the tutorial is very clear, however, you can download the brush form here:
http://bit.ly/a2224t
i cant define the brush to…y fallow the steps but not working
uhm.. i cant define the brush. it simply cant be how can i solve this? :((
Great tips. I was wondering how to make the bubbles so bright… I wasn´t able to get them to shine. Irene L uses a lot of this effect on her pics… can you give me an idea how to make the bubbles brighter and more shinny?
Thank you!
Thanks for the tutorial.. It helped me a lot in understanding the brush engine… :)
[...] Light Bubbles Effect Photoshop Tutorial [...]
Hi! this is very well explain nice tuts. our designer just created a impressive wallpaper.
any one can see here http://bit.ly/bn4LQE
Thanks for sharing,
qammar feroz
Nice work..keep it up
Hi- for some apparent reason it does not let me select the define preset button- to enable it to be a brush?
can anyone please help- ive been racking my brains over this for a long time!
Thanks
Amit
Great effect. I started to use this when I first read it on psdtuts.
How amazingly simple, I’m starting to look effects like this for website design backdrops so these tips are ideal.
Thanks
Ryan
[...] 2.Light Bubbles Effect Photoshop Tutorial [...]
This is a very good tutorial. Been looking everywhere for a tutorial on this kind of effect. Thank you. :)
It worked very well, excellent tutorial!
At first i didn’t know why to credit you, i found the video directly on Vimeo. I changed my article and now you have a direct link to your post.
Erm… Do you mind crediting me for my video tutorial?
@Joris: i simply love it, great work!
Thanks this tutorial is really easy and helpfull.
This is my outcome:
[...] original here: Light Bubbles Effect Photoshop Tutorial – Web Design Blog 09 SHARETHIS.addEntry({ title: “Light Bubbles Effect Photoshop Tutorial – Web Design Blog 09″, url: [...]
Very nice tut. Just downloaded the file, thanks!
[...] this page was mentioned by photoframd (@photoframd), Diego Angarita (@tutostube), PhotoshopLady (@photoshoplady) and others. [...]
[...] the original post: Light Bubbles Effect Photoshop Tutorial – Web Design Blog 09 Posted in Photoshop | Tags: brush, brush-engine-, different-shapes, for-example, [...]
This was excellent! I’ve been looking for this tip for a long time also. Thanks for the post.
Awesome tutorial I will surely try this. Thanks.
Wow so simple yet effective. This is one that i will try, Thanks.
Awesome tut. I love your site
this tutorial is delicious. thanks for the help and I will definitely be using this to spice up my designs.
Thanks for the great beautiful tutorial. you are one of a kind who have taste creativity on colors and photoshop. Thanks!
I’ve been looking for a tut like this so I could include this style wallpaper in my website.
Thank you!
Simple and effective design. The blurred background really pulls it together.
Awsome, great tutorial! Simple and beauty.
Simple yet effective.
Awesome.
Great Tutorial! Thanks for the PSD!
Wooow!! Really good and easy effect. Thanks for sharing. Good Luck
Thank you for a great wallpaper, it looks great on my laptop. I will try my hand at the tutorial and see how my one turns out lol lol. Thanks again
Wow, this is neat! I’ll give it a try.
Thanks for the post.
Excellent tutorial. I love the simplicity and uniqueness of this one, plus the effect can be used in a variety of ways, which is great. Thanks for sharing this tutorial, keep up the good work!
Great tutorial, I liked a lot it’s simplicity.
Hey! Thanks very much for the tut, its briliant, will experiment with it a bit ! :D
thanks a again
This is awesome. I’m well making something like this tomorrow! :D