The “light bokeh” control will brighten the brightest points in the out-of-focus area to mimic lens bokeh. Avoid these controls if you don’t have point lights in the background.

The bokeh effect relies on a separation between the subject of a photo from the background. Smartphone cameras default to autofocus, meaning the app will attempt to guess the subject of an image.

Once you have the lights, you need to shoot them with the right settings. To bring out their inner bokeh, you have to keep them out of focus, so make them the background element in your shot.

What's a bokeh you say? It's that oh-so-wonderful fuzziness in the background of photographs with a shallow depth of field and accompanying starry highlights. You can create you own bokeh effects ...

This shot was taken with Christmas lights hanging in the background and a small light on the subject in the foreground in an otherwise dark room. Exposure: 1/50, f/1.8, ISO 800 Lexy Savvides/CNET ...

A prime (fixed focal length) lens with a wide aperture of f/1.8 will produce superior bokeh to a zoom lens with an aperture of f/5.6. The iPhone uses prime lenses, with up to three on the back of ...