MANUAL / PLUGIN

Palf Bokeh

A depth-of-field defocus effect with aperture, highlight and depth-map controls.

Installation

01
Quit Adobe After Effects completely.
02
Copy Bokeh.aex (Windows) or Bokeh.plugin (macOS) into the After Effects Plug-ins folder.
03
Start After Effects and apply from Effect > Palf > Palf Bokeh. If After Effects was already running, restart it so the plug-in loads.

Windows: C:\Program Files\Adobe\Adobe After Effects <version>\Support Files\Plug-ins\
macOS: /Applications/Adobe After Effects <version>/Plug-ins/

Requirements: After Effects 2023–2026 / Windows / macOS 11.0 (Big Sur) or later.

Caution (macOS)

If macOS blocks the plug-in and it will not load, run the following command in Terminal (enter the path for your install), then restart After Effects.

sudo xattr -r -d com.apple.quarantine "/Applications/Adobe After Effects <version>/Plug-ins/Bokeh.plugin"

Caution (rejected-plug-in cache)

If a previous version failed to load once, After Effects on Mac may keep rejecting the plug-in from cache even after you replace the .plugin file. Hold Shift while launching After Effects to clear the plug-in cache; it may then load. Moving or renaming the preferences file aside before launch is fine too.

~/Library/Preferences/com.Adobe.After Effects.<version>.plist

How to use

01
Apply the effect to the layer you want to blur.
02
Set Blur Amount, Iris Type and other parameters as needed.
03
To use a depth map, enable the focus map and assign a depth layer.

Some items appear only for certain Iris Type or Focus settings.

Blur

GPU Acceleration: Status readout only (not a render switch). Shows whether the GPU is active, available but unused for the current host render, or unavailable.
Blur Amount: Optical blur radius. Default 50. Below 2, fades smoothly from a sharp image.

Iris

Iris Type: Circle / Polygonal / Custom. Default: Circle.
Iris Preview: Display-only preview of the current iris. Hidden when Custom.
Iris Angle: Iris rotation. Default: 0°.
Iris Aspect: Aspect ratio. 0 = circle, positive = vertical squash, negative = horizontal squash. Range −100 to +100.
Polygonal Sides / Polygonal Curvature: Polygonal only. Sides 3–16 (default 6), curvature −100 to +200 (0 = hard polygonal).
Custom Iris / Iris Channel / Iris Fit: Custom only. Aperture mask layer, channel (Alpha / Luma / RGB), and fit (Contain / Cover / Stretch).
Threshold / Softness / Gamma / Sampling: Custom only. Threshold, softness, gamma, and iris sampling detail (higher = finer shape, more cost).

Highlights

Highlight Start / Softness: Luminance where boosting begins, and softness around that point. Range 0–255.
Highlight Boost / Saturation: Boost strength (−100% to +100%, default 60%) and saturation of boosted highlights (default 100%).

Camera Focus

Enable Focus Map: Enables depth-of-field / zone control from a depth map. Default: Off.
Depth Map Layer / Map Channel: Depth layer and map channel (Alpha / Luma / RGB). Default channel: Luma.
Invert Map: Inverts near / far interpretation.
Use Focus Point / Focus Point / Distance: When on, samples focus distance from depth at Focus Point. When off, set Focus Distance (0–100%) directly.

Zone Control

Zone Visualization: Display-only zone view (near = warm, far = cyan, focus = green).
Zone Width / Zone Offset: Width of the in-focus band (0–100%) and skew toward near (−) or far (+) (−100% to +100%).
Near Blur Factor / Far Blur Factor / Near Falloff / Far Falloff: Blur scale on the near / far side of focus (0–100%) and how blur ramps with depth (0.05–4.0).

Quality and output

Quality: Preview / Balanced / High / Ultra. Changes focus sampling density only; iris shape stays the same.
Edge Behaviour: No Additional Processing / Repeat / Mirror / Extend. Out-of-bounds sampling. Default: Extend.
Alpha Mode / Expand Output: Premultiplied / Preserve Input / Blur Alpha. Expand Output lets blur extend past layer bounds (while enabled, edge sampling is forced to transparent).

Tips

Prefer Mercury GPU Acceleration for Circle / Polygonal / Custom / Focus. Custom iris energy is normalised so overall blur brightness stays consistent. Depth maps are treated as normalised 0–1 values.

DEMO edition

The free DEMO offers the same controls as the full edition, with a red cross watermark on every output frame. The effect appears as “Palf Bokeh DEMO” (Bokeh_DEMO.aex / .plugin) and can sit alongside the full plug-in.