Video Effects
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Halation effect for video and photos

Add the red-orange glow film shows round bright highlights, set it with the sliders and compare it with the original, then open your own video or photo and export it at full resolution. It runs in your browser: your file is never uploaded.

  • Free
  • No upload
  • No account needed
  • No watermark
  • MP4, WebM, PNG, JPEG, WebP
Linen curtains on a driftwood frame over coastal grass at golden hour, a red-orange glow round the sunlit cloth on the right half of the frame.

Halation

Amount
Threshold
Radius
Open your own fileOpen this look in the editor

How to add halation to a video online

  1. Open your video or photo

    Choose Open your own file: the editor opens with the effect, ready for your file (videos as MP4, MOV, M4V, WebM, MKV; photos as JPEG, PNG, WebP, AVIF). It opens in your browser, and nothing is uploaded.

  2. Set the halo and compare

    Amount sets how strong the halo is, Threshold how bright a highlight must be to get one and Radius how far it reaches. Compare shows the original beside the result; play a video to see the halos follow the light.

  3. Export it

    In the editor, export the video as MP4 or WebM, or the photo as PNG, JPEG or WebP, at its full resolution, with no watermark.

Amount, Threshold and Radius

Amount sets how strong the red-orange halo is, from none at 0 to 100.

Threshold sets how bright a highlight must be before it halates, from 0 to 1 in linear light, the halo fading in over a soft range round it rather than switching on. Raise it and only lamps, the sun and bright reflections halate; lower it and more of the picture's bright parts do.

Radius sets how far the halo reaches beyond the highlight, from 0.2 to 10% of the frame's shorter side. As it is a share of the frame, a 4K export has the same halo as the small preview, and a vertical video the same as a landscape one.

What halation is

On colour film, bright light passes through the layers of the film, reflects off its back and comes back through the red-sensitive layer, exposing it again round the highlight: a red-orange glow. Most film has a layer that absorbs much of that light; film without one shows strong halos round street lights and neon at night.

Here, as on film, the halo has the film's colour rather than the light's: it is red-orange round a white lamp and a blue sign alike. It shows round the highlight, not over it, so the highlight itself stays clean.

Where halation shows

Halation needs bright highlights against darker surroundings: street lights, neon and headlights at night, the sun behind a subject, light through a window, sparkle on water. In flat daylight with nothing bright, there is little to halate: lower Threshold to let more of the picture glow.

The halo is light added in linear light, as real light adds, so it is brightest next to the highlight and fades smoothly away from it. On video it is worked out for every frame, so it follows the lights as they move, and the export matches the preview frame for frame.

Halation and bloom

Bloom spreads a highlight's own light as a soft glow over it and round it, in the light's own colour; halation adds only the red-orange ring round it. In the editor they are two effects, each with its own threshold, drawn from one shared glow, and the Night film preset uses both.

Your files stay on your device

Everything happens right on your device, in your browser. Your videos and photos are opened, edited and saved there, and never sent anywhere.

Because nothing is uploaded, your files are safe: nothing can leak, and no one else, not even us, ever sees them. You don't need an account: one holds only your email address and the AI agents you let in, and signing in keeps a single cookie. An agent's instructions to your editor pass through our server and are deleted as soon as the editor has carried them out; your files never do. Without cookies, the site counts visits and a few choices, such as a preset or effect you pick and the format you export to, but never which files you open or anything in them.

Exports leave out hidden details such as where a video was recorded, and a shared link carries only your settings, never your file.

Files and browsers

Opens MP4, MOV, WebM and MKV videos and JPEG, PNG, WebP and AVIF photos, and exports MP4 or WebM, or PNG, JPEG or WebP, at full resolution, keeping the original sound where the browser can. Works in current Chrome and Edge on a computer or Android, in current Firefox on a computer and in Safari 26 or later; HDR video is converted to standard range.

Film looks with halation

In the editor, halation sits beside bloom, grain, a vignette and your own LUT, and these presets use it. Each opens the editor with its look:

Questions about the halation effect

Choose Open your own file above to open the editor with the effect, open your video there, set Amount, Threshold and Radius, and export it as MP4 or WebM. In the editor, Halation is under Add effect, and the Warm film and Night film presets include it.

More effects to try

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