10 Best Bokeh Effect Camera App for Android: DLSR Like Bokeh Photography

Bokeh effect Mode or Background blur can easily achieve in the dual camera smartphones such as Honor 8 pro, Samsung Note8, Oneplus 5, iPhone 7, or 8 and so on. But if you have a normal smartphone with a single camera lens camera then how would create a bokeh effect or decrease the depth of field? It is simple you can use some best bokeh effect apps those allow digital blur to your images.

Also, if the subject is at the right distance the single-camera can capture beautiful bokeh effect images like DSLR bokeh photography even without any camera app. To achieve bokeh effect in smartphone photography you need to minimize the distance between the camera and the subject. For reference look at your eyes those are working in the same way, for example, take your finger near to your eyes and see it, you will see that the everything at the background become blurs.

But the problem is that only the close-ups or macro shots background can be a blur in the low budget smartphone using a single camera. So, if you want to create real professional DLSR like bokeh effect in wide shots,  you need to use some camera apps like Google camera.

What bokeh effect photography?

Most of the DSLRs have the capability to focus on a particular object as our eyes do, to create a background blur effect. In bokeh the subject is in focus, sharp and appears clear, however, rest of the background becomes a blur. In DSLR camera, it depends on the lens and its aperture size. However, when we talk about smartphone bokeh photography, we cannot change the lens. In that situation, we have to depend totally on the smartphone camera lens and its aperture size.

Here are some best camera apps for Bokeh Blur effect photography like DSLR

1. AfterFocus

AfterFocus Lens blur app

This photography app allows creating DSLR style background blurred with simple selecting focus area while clinking the images. To add the blur effect you need to select the area precisely.  It is one of the best apps for providing professional bokeh effect and also has different filters and effects.

Here you can see the step by step tutorial on AfterFocus: Blur Background using the Afterfocus

AfterFocus Features:

  • Focus area selection using draw line around the object.
  • Background Blur effect includes Lens Blur, Motion Blur, and Zoom Blur
  • Different aperture effects
  • Fading: No fading, Normal and Manual
  • Multiple Filters for foreground, Background, and whole.
  • Effect – Vignetting, Color mask, Sticker and sharpen.

2. Google Camera

Google Camera app fro creating bokeh effect in the image blur

If you just looking for beautiful bokeh effects in your mobile photography use the Google Camera app. It is a simple Android app but with great bokeh lens blur capability. You can capture the images using the app’s lens blur option and with help of a moving verticle bar, you can separate the object from rest of the background. The images captured by the Google camera preserve the after blur focus shift capabilities that means you can shift the focus later too. This is the default app for Google Pixel and Nexus devices.

To capture bokeh effect with focus shift you need to tap on the lens blur option and focus on the object after that slide the phone slowly towards the upward side as shown in the above screenshot.

Google camera Features:

  • Auto HDR+, automatically detects when HDR+ (High Dynamic Range + Low Light) use to capture.
  • Slow motion video
  • Fast switch between video and photos
  • SmartBurst
  • Multiple photo modes such as Lens Blur, Wide Angle, Panorama, and Photo Sphere
  •  Need Android 6.0 or above.

If this app is not available in your country, you can use this mirror link:  APK Mirror file

4. Snapseed

It is another professional photo editor developed by Google. Snapseed is one of the popular and doesn’t need an introduction. Snapseed offers a wide range of editing tools including Lens blur option to add the beautiful Bokeh to images for photographic portraits on pre captures images. It provides around 29 photo editing tool such as  RAW Develop, Tune Image, Crop, Rotate, Perspective, White Balance, Brush, Vignette, Curves, Expand, Lens Blur, Vintage, Frames, Double Exposure and much more… The app is available for both Android and iOS.

You can see the given screenshot for its Lens blur feature. Also, you can see:  how to take bokeh photo using a Snapseed smartphone app

Sanpseed bokeh effect background blur for smartphones
Best bokeh effect camera app for android

5. PhotoDirector Photo Editor App

PhotoDirector Photo Editor App with nokeh feature

This another high photo editing capabilities app for a smartphone with bokeh effect mode.  It allows to capture live bokeh effect images but has a limited area. Beside bokeh, it provides lots of options those can use to tweak the images professionally.

Features: 

  • Adjust HSL sliders and RGB colour channels
  • Tone adjustment
  • Quick White Balance correction
  • Tweak Saturation
  •  Live Effects
  • Collages
  • Content-Aware Removal editing tools
  • Add and adjust HDR effects
  • Photo effects it provides are Lomo, Artistic, HDR and Vignette.
  • Blender tool to add an extra image or effect layer
  • And more…

6. Insta bokeh: blend camera

Insta bokeh blend camera app for smartphone free

Insta bokeh camera app has a bit different approach to give a bokeh effect. This free app has already predefined filter with beautiful; bokeh effects.  You can choose any bokeh effect from the defined category such as romantic sky, tender night, dream world and favourite text to blend and give a beautiful effect to your images.

Features:

  • Bokeh + light effect.
  • Transparency  adjustment to bokeh effect
  • Drag & Drop / Rotate
  • Share photo on Instagram or another social network.

Best Smartphone camera Apps for Bokeh effect: Verdict

Although, we have listed six camera apps for creating a bokeh effect, however, what we think you just need three apps to full fill all your bokeh related demands: Google Camera app, Autofocus, and Snapseed. And if you are looking to add some filters then the Insta bokeh or other apps listed in this article can be used.

Here are a few smartphone camera review sample images links, where we have captured some bokeh effect images without any software.

Other Useful Resources:

3 thoughts on “10 Best Bokeh Effect Camera App for Android: DLSR Like Bokeh Photography”

  1. I liked your article, I was searching for ways to use bokeh effect simply and I landed on your site. Do you know which app offers both blur background and bokeh effect of real quality?, as I need one app only for some reason.

    Reply
  2. Wonderful article and I think photodirector is the best among this list.

    I would say it has got good features as well.

    Reply

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