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Are you trying to imitate the halations found in Cinestill 800T film on digital? Or maybe you can't afford to shoot on film/buy a mist filter? Here's a technique to add that effect any picture (even phone photos).
What is halation?
"Halation is the effect that occurs when the bright areas of an image appear to softly bleed around the edges of dark areas. This is caused by light going through the emulsion layer, bouncing off the base of the film and exposing the adjacent emulsion." - The Darkroom Blog
Example of halation
Do you see the red glow around the lights in this image? They are the result of halation on Cinestill 800T film. (Image credit to The Darkroom Blog.)
On to the tutorial
Load your image into GIMP
Make a black and white copy of the image layer
1. Right click the layer and click "Duplicate Layer".
2. Select "Colors -> Saturation" from the top menu and pull the slider all the way to left in the box that pops up, and then click "OK".
Clip all parts of the image that are not in the upper end of the exposure to black.
1. Select "Colors -> Levels" from the top menu.
2. Adjust the leftmost slider into the upper end of the levels until most of the image appears fully black, except for the brightest parts of the image (highlights). You can adjust the middle slider until the highlights are fully white. The layer should be solid black with totally white highlights. When you're finished, hit "OK".
Make sure the "Preview" box is checked if you want a live view of what your changes will look like.
Erase unwanted areas
1. Select the brush tool and choose the "Hardness 075" brush.
2. Make sure your foreground color is set to black.
3. Adjust the brush size as needed.
4. Erase unwanted parts of the image. (Unwanted parts of the image should be anything that doesn't emit light!)
5. You can easily compare the base image and the edited image by clicking the "eye" icon on the active layer
Apply a Sobel Edge detection
1. Select "Filters -> Edge-Detect -> Sobel..." from the top menu and then click "OK" on the box that pops up.
The result is that all of your highlight areas should be replaced with white outlines.
Apply Gaussian blur
1. Select "Filters -> Blur -> Gaussian Blur..." from the top menu, adjust the slider to get the amount of halation you desire, and then click "OK". This will determine the size of the final halation in your image. The stronger the blur, the bigger the halation.
Increase the contrast
1. Select the "Levels" popup again and adjust the rightmost slider down until the whites are bright white. This will effect the strength of the halation (how bright the halation will be).
Copy your base image and make a red-only version
1. Select your base layer and make another duplicate of it
2. First, make sure the layer you just made is selected. Then hide the halation layer so you can see what you're doing. Select "Levels" from the top menu. Change the Channel to Green, and move the leftmost slider up until all the green is removed from the image. Do the same for Blue, and then hit "OK".
Copy the halation layer to a mask on your red channel layer, and set the layer to screen.
1. Right click the red layer and select "Add Layer Mask". Select "Black (full transparency)" from the list of option and then hit "OK".
2. Select the halation layer and hit "Ctrl+x" on your keyboard. Then, hit "Ctrl+v". Right click the Floating Selection and click "Anchor Layer".
3. Click the layer mode and select "Screen" from the list of options
You're done!
Here are what the individual layers look like:
And a comparison of before and after:
You may need to adjust the contrast and blur of the halation layer until you get something you're happy with. Thankfully GIMP is a non-destructive editing application and you can go through your change history to get back to where your last change to it was.Credit to this reddit post for the description of how to create this effect in GIMP.
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