Glow Expo for DaVinci Resolve

For years, I hacked my glows together. One glow, a blur on top, a second, wider glow, settings all over the place. And after an hour, the result still looked a bit like an "effect".

So I ended up building my own tool. And since I know I'm not the only one struggling with this, I'm giving it to you.

By Kriss Norde, Blackmagic Design certified trainer.

Why the basic glow almost never works on the first try

The usual glow is a blur laid over the bright parts of the image. The halo has a fixed size, then it stops abruptly: the light looks stuck on the image instead of shining.

Real light is very strong at the center, then it spreads far while slowly losing strength. That's why we end up stacking two or three glows. Glow Expo does that in a single effect.

What Glow Expo does

Drop the effect on your clip and set the intensity and the glow size. Is the whole image glowing? Raise the "Shine Threshold": only the lamps, the sky, a neon sign or a white title keep their glow. These are the same words as in the DaVinci Resolve Glow.

"Spread" sets whether the light stays tight around the source or travels far across the image. "White Core" whitens the center, like a neon too bright for the camera.

For a sign, the pulse makes the light breathe, beat or flicker, and the atmosphere drifts a light haze in front of it. Not a single keyframe. And it stays fast: about 20 milliseconds per frame in HD on my PC.

What you need

DaVinci Resolve 21 or later, free or Studio.

Installs in two minutes: the .fuse file goes into the DaVinci Resolve Fuses folder, then double-click the .drfx file. The guide that comes with the plugin gives you the paths for Windows and Mac.

The same glow is available for your animated arrows and outlines, in Traces Pro.