Blown-out highlights are supposed to be an undesirable effect in photography, but they often add a desirable glow to images. We will use the Render to Layers feature in Strata Design 3D to add glow to a render.
Render to Layers
We are using a gold chain scene (the same one from the joint tool tutorial) since it has lots of highlights.
We’ll do a render, with two extra layers: specularity and reflectivity. First we will select Render to Layers in the Render dialog.
Next, from the Layer Options, we make sure we only have the Full Color Image Layer, Specular and Reflected layers selected.
After the rendering is finished, we save it as a Photoshop file (.psd) and then open the render in Photoshop. We will notice three layers. Composite Color Image, Specular and Reflected.
Move (or copy if you are slightly paranoid) the Reflected and Specular layers so that they sit on top of the composite color image.
The layers should be something like this:
Color Composite
Specular
Reflected
We will now apply Gaussian Blur in Photoshop to both the Specular and Reflected layers.
For this small (640×480) image 4 pixels is a good Radius value. This will vary depending on what image you are using.
In case the blown out highlights are too stark, you can reduce the layer opacity in Photoshop.
The final result should be something like this:
That’s it. Please share what you obtain! 🙂
