How to Add a Soft, Warm Glow to Images Using Photoshop

A very popular and fun look for portraits and candid shots is a warm glow that seems to emanate from a soft, out-of-frame light source. This fun and easy tutorial will show you how to add that same glow to your images using Photoshop.

Coming to you from Aaron Nace at Phlearn, this great video will show the process for adding a warm glow to your images in Photoshop. If you're like me in any way, you're eternally cold in the winter and you'll do anything to feel warm again, even if it means Photoshopping the warmth (maybe it's time for me to step away from the computer for a bit). Nonetheless, this is a fairly easy thing to do, and the video will teach you how to use gradients to create natural tonal transitions quickly and easily across the frame. In addition, the effect is easily adjustable after you add it, making it no problem to adjust things more to your liking, such as increasing the size of the source to decrease the harshness of the transitions, etc. It's an easy technique that can breathe an entirely different mood into images, so grab one from your catalog and give it a try!

Alex Cooke's picture

Alex Cooke is a Cleveland-based portrait, events, and landscape photographer. He holds an M.S. in Applied Mathematics and a doctorate in Music Composition. He is also an avid equestrian.

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6 Comments

I like it too, as some images can be too perfect and sterile. It adds a nostalgic character to pictures.

War of the Worlds, right?

I’m a sucker for flare. Two of my favorites come to mind. In the second shot, what I really love is the translucence of the orange bag.

Original Amityville Horror? The house/village is less than ten minutes from me. One of the two camera shops I frequent is in Amityville. The village is quaint, actually.

Either Cameta or Berger Bros.. and it's odd that in that little village, both were there before Berger left. Cameta is my go-to when I need something quick.

Yeah, they're in a stand-alone buiding now... at least for the last 15 or 16 years. Back then, I bought a Minolta digital camera- It was a 5 mp camera, though it didn't have interchangeable lenses and I don't think it was classified as a DSLR. It ran me $1,200!!! I used it for maybe a couple years, if that... then I didn't get back into photography until almost two years ago.