Starglow
Starglow has the following main controls:
Select a preset from the top of the plug-in controls. In the presets list, the first section (Red, Green, Blue) are simple star shapes that use only one color map. The next section is a set of white shapes. The next section is a set of prisms. Then follows a set of colorful star shapes.
When you select a preset, the image will update. If you change any preset controls (i.e., Individual Lengths, Individual Colors , or Colormaps), the preset pop-up will flip back to the "Current Settings" state.
See a full list of presets here.
Input Channel
Use the menu to base the effect on Lightness, Luminance, Red, Green, Blue, or Alpha channels in the source layer or clip.
Streak Length
This control acts as a master slider for streak lengths in all directions. Larger values show very long streaks; smaller values yield a subtler glow.
Boost Light
The Boost Light slider controls streak brightness to make them look more pronounced.
This group of controls let you set the individual glow lengths in eight cardinal directions, like points on a star or compass. The directions are: Up, Down, Left, Right, Up Left, Up Right, Down Left, and Down Right.
This group of controls lets you set individual color maps that can be used for each glow direction. There are three choices for each direction: Color Map A, Color Map B, and Color Map C. Directional colors are controlled in the Colormap section.
There are three
Colormap
groups, and each contains controls to set the coloring of the glow effect for a particular direction.
The
Preset
pop-up offers both color set presets and a choice of using one-color, three-color, or five-color gradients.
One Color:
One color can be picked, and the map is comprised of a single color.
3-Color Gradient:
Three colors can be chosen for Highlights, Midtones, and Shadows.
5-Color Gradient:
Five colors can be used for Highlights, Mid High, Midtones, Mid Low, and Shadows.
The 3-Color Gradient presets offer greater color diversity. When you select one of the presets, the three colors update. Feel free to tweak the colors to your taste.
The Shimmer group contains controls to make the light "shimmer." This means the ray length is modulated by an animatable fractal, so rays seem to move in and out and sideways.
This control sets the shimmer bias against the glow without shimmer. When the Amount is set to 0, no shimmer is generated, regardless of any other control values in the Shimmer section.
This control sets how fine the shimmer detail appears. Higher values generate thinner lines.
Phase controls the phase of the shimmer. Animating this makes shimmering move randomly. To make a seamless loop, check the Use Loop checkbox and set Revolutions in Loop to the desired amount.
For example, if the loop should be four seconds long and consist of two complete phase revolutions, you would set two keyframes for Phase. The first might have value 0 (zero) at time 0 (zero). Then you might set the second with value 2 at time 4 seconds. Make sure the last frame (the one at 4 seconds) is not included in the loop. If this was included, there would be two identical frames following each other. Set Revolutions in Loop to 2.
With extremely high Amount (>1000) and high Detail values (>200), you can generate spiky or cloth-like patterns of lines.
Starglow offers controls for compositing the glow into the source image using Source Opacity, Starglow Opacity, and a Transfer Mode pop-up menu.
Starglow output can be composited with the original image using a subset of After Effects' built-in transfer modes. By default, Transfer Mode is set to Screen, which brightens the darker colors in the output while preserving brights. Starglow offers the following modes: None, Normal, Add, Multiply, Overlay, Soft Light, Hard Light, Color Dodge, Color Burn, Darken, Lighten, Difference, Exclusion, Hue, Saturation, Color, and Luminosity.
Source Opacity sets the opacity (the opposite of transparency) of the source. The default value of 100 uses the full brightness of the original source.
Starglow Opacity controls the entire glow effect's opacity. A setting of 0 will result in no glow. Asetting of 100 will yield the maximum glow effect.