Glamour Glow in Color Efex Pro 4 simulates soft focus filters and diffusion techniques (mainly known to portrait photographers) to give a dreamy, soft look to your images. The Glamour Glow filter allows us to achieve this effect without the extra on-camera equipment that was traditionally used. It can be used to give a romantic, even a dramatic quality to images, making it a great way to stylize them.

By getting familiar with the filter controls, we can learn how to quickly apply this creative effect.

The Glow slider allows you to increase or decrease the degree of the softening technique applied to the image. The default value is set to 27%, giving a slight glow to the image.

The Saturation slider controls the vibrancy of the colors within the image and defaults at -29%. Please note, moving to -100% will not completely desaturate the image as there will be some color left.

The Glow Warmth slider handles the temperature of the effect on the image, and is set at a neutral 0%. Moving the slider to the left will cool the glow effect that has been added to the image, while moving it to the right will warm the glow effect.

Also, the Shadows and Highlights protection sliders are set to 41% and 44% respectively; these are the default values assigned. Moving the Shadows and Highlights sliders to the right will help bring detail back into those regions of the image.

Tip: Utilize minus Control Points to retain some sharpness on your subject within the image. On portraits, try adding these to the hair and eyes of the subject to maintain sharp details. This will help draw the eye to your subject, while the filtered effect is applied everywhere else.

Article by Mark Rainer

Photograph © Benny Migliorino