palf_strage
Plug-ins

Palf Bokeh

Aperture-shaped defocus with depth-of-field control.

The shape of the aperture, made literal — with depth of field.

Palf Bokeh — 1

Palf Bokeh is an After Effects effect that generates defocus with the aperture shape of a camera lens. The blur amount is set in pixels, and the iris can be circular, polygonal, or driven by a custom layer. Feed it a depth map to control depth of field, or boost the highlights to produce large bokeh balls.

Apply from: Effect > Palf > Palf Bokeh

Features

  • A continuous blur radius that fades smoothly to zero
  • Circular, polygonal and custom irises
  • Optional depth-map focus with zone control
  • Highlight boost
  • 8 / 16 / 32 bit support, with Mercury GPU acceleration where available (Windows: CUDA, OpenCL / macOS: Metal)
  • Composite control through edge handling and alpha modes

DEMO edition

A free DEMO is also available. It offers the same controls as the full edition, with a red cross watermark on every output frame. The effect appears as “Palf Bokeh DEMO” and can sit alongside the full plug-in.

macOS 11.0 (Big Sur) or later is required. If the plug-in still will not load after replacement, see the cache-clearing steps in the online manual.

ManualsPalf Bokeh

Changelog

  1. 1.0.4
    • Rebuilt depth-map focus so foreground bokeh spreads across the background while nearer subjects keep a clean edge against it
    • Removed the jagged outlines, cut-out halos and colour fringes along depth-map boundaries
    • Fixed a bright line along antialiased depth boundaries, most visible with Highlight Boost
  2. 1.0.3
    • Fixed the GPU status occasionally appearing disconnected while GPU rendering remained available
    • Fixed Focus Point depth sampling and synchronised the Zone Control focus position
    • Rebuilt depth-map focus so iris contributions can spread beyond depth silhouettes
    • Reduced black and dotted fringes at antialiased depth boundaries while preserving smooth depth gradients and highlights
  3. 1.0.2
    • Pin macOS minimum to 11.0 (Big Sur) so plugs load on Ventura and other supported hosts
    • Documented clearing the Mac AE rejected-plug-in cache in the README
  4. 1.0.1
    • Recognition on After Effects 2023.0 and later
    • Documented macOS quarantine removal in the README
    • Added a DEMO build (red cross watermark on all output)
  5. 1.0.0
    • Initial release
    • Aperture defocus with circular, polygonal and custom irises
    • Highlight boost and depth-map focus with zone control
    • CPU and GPU paths (CUDA / OpenCL / Metal where available)
    • UI localised in English, Japanese, Simplified Chinese and Korean

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