021 - IFX tutorial - Fantasy glow
This tutorial was written for ImagineFX magazine Issue#8.
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Fantasy Glow.
Using a soft brush with a low flow works nicely to apply glow around highlights, and I recommend doing this at the final stages of a painting.If you really want to achieve a global glow effect there are simple shortcuts, but know that this will change the colour values in your ppicture quite a bit. Unless, of course, this is the effect you are aiming for.
Start with a completely flattened picture, duplicate the picture into a new layer on top of the original.
Now open the Gaussian Blur dialogue (filter/blur/Gaussian blur…) and drag the radius slider until all details gets blurry.
Now, go to edit/fade Gaussian Blur (Shift+Ctrl+F), leave the Opacity at 100 percent and set Mode to Screen, and click ok.
Do the same routine one more time with Gaussian Blur, fade Gaussian Blur, but set the Mode to Soft Light this time.
I am guessing the picture has got too much soft glow right now, so now you can blend the amount of glow you want with the original picture by sliding the Opacity slider on the layers menu.
Create a simple soft glow with a Gaussian Blur and Fade Gaussian Blur routine, but be careful to not overdo it.