in today's video I want to share a dramatic Sunglow effect you can create using Nik color
Efex Pro I'll be using Nik color Efex Pro 5 from the Nik Collection 5 but you can
also create this effect with earlier versions of the software this is a starting image which
I shot using a Panasonic G9 micro four thirds camera because I didn't use any filters when I
took the shot the brightest areas of the cloud are blown out even though there's no clipping in the
histogram the reason there isn't any clipping in a histogram is because I've done my best
to recover the highlights in the Raw converter unfortunately there's nothing I can do to fix
this problem so I think it's an Ideal Image to try in the new Sunglow effect with I already have
the image open in Nik Color Efex Pro so let's get started before I apply the Sunglow effect I
want to correct a slight pink color cast in the image which I can see mainly in the beach I'll
do this by adding a pro contrast filter and then moving the correct Color cast slider to the right
this fixes the beach but it's making the yellow in the sky look a little bit green to prevent this
I'm going to add a series of negative control points to the image I'll place the first one
on the bright area of the sky to the right of the frame you can see the color return When I
add it now if you're using Color Efex Pro 5 as I am you also have these additional luminance and
chromina Sliders you can use these to control the selection made by the control point I'm going to
turn on the mask View for the control point now by clicking this icon now I can see the area selected
by the control point in white I want it to select a wider range of tones than it is at the moment so
I'll move the luminance slider to the left whilst I have the mass view on I'll also change the size
of the control point I'm happy with the mask now so I'll click the mask view icon a second time to
return to the image preview next I want to hide the effects of the filter from the other yellow
areas of the sky so I'll out more negative control points I'm just adding these to the yellow clouds
to prevent the filter from affecting them now I'll add the first of the filters to produce the sun
glow effect which is the sunlight filter you can immediately see the effect at the default settings
but it's applied to the entire image which I don't want instead I want to limit the effects
of the bright areas to the right of the frame to do this I'm going to add a positive control
point and use it to select the clouds near to the bright area of the sky because this is a positive
control point it limits the effect to only the areas it selects and it hides it from the rest
of the image as before I'll turn on the mask preview using the mask icon then I can reduce
the luminance slider and resize the control point to refine the selection let's turn that off now to
check the effect on the image having done that I can refine the controls to increase the strength
of the light effect I'll increase the light temperature as well because I want to reduce the
yellow a little I can then increase the brightness to emphasize the glow and finally I'll set the
contrast to refine how it affects the surrounding darker areas if we compare the changes we've made
with the starting image you can see that it's creating a nice bright glowing effect let's now
add the sunlight filter to the foreground where the sun's reflecting on the ripples of the sand
I'll start with the bottom right corner I can then increase the luminance control to make the
control Point more sensitive to brightness I just need to be careful that I position it accurately
so that it's selecting the bright area of the sand I'll then duplicate the control point and
position it more towards the center of the frame to pick up the other reflected light now for the
second filter to create the sun glow effect this time it's the classics soft Focus filter initially
this looks way too strong but don't worry it'll be much less noticeable shortly I'll start by
adding a positive of control point to the sky let's turn on the mask preview so we can see
the selection in white this time I'm not going to use the luminance slider because I don't want
the filter affecting the pier instead I'll reduce the chrominance control so that it selects a wider
range of colors now I can adjust the effect using the controls starting by changing the
method drop down to use method 2. this isn't as bright as method one so we can see a small
amount of cloud detail returning to the sky then I'll increase the strength slider to balance the
detail with the brightness I also want a small amount of soft focus effect applied to the rest
of the image when I added the positive control point it set the opacity of the overall filter
Mass to zero percent to hide it it's then only where I add the control point that it makes the
filter visible but what I can do is increase the overall filter opacity using this slider
by increasing those to around 20 percent the filter affects the entire image but at a reduced
strength I can now see that the sand is losing some of its contrast so I'll go back to the pro
contrast filter we started with this has a global contrast slider which I can use to increase the
overall contrast of the image another filter that you can combine with this Sunglow effect is the
glamor glow filter again you can use this with the control punch just as we've already looked
at you might also want to finish the image off by adding a vignette effect using the dark and
light and Center filter here's a starting image and here's the finished effect now at the start
of this video I use the pro contrast filter which I consider essential for photo editing watch this
next video to find out why and see just what's possible using this filter thanks for watching
today and don't forget to subscribe if you haven't already I'll see you soon for another video