How to Make a Bloom Effect
Using Photoshop CS
Bloom has been used extensively in more recent games to give a more photo-realistic image. It gives the image a softer quality and usually accentuates highlights, which can give most photos a very high-quality look.
Bloom can be artificially recreated fairly easily in as little as 3 steps (but may require more work for better results).
Finding an Image
As I had previously said, this tutorial can give most images a professional quality, but - as the word 'most' implies - it does not work well with all images. You'll want to get yourself an image that is sharp (not blurry) and with little-to-no 'noise' or film grain. For this tutorial, I'm going to use an image I took, myself, of an Aston Martin DB7 Vantage.
First thing you'll want to do is copy the image onto a new layer (Ctrl+J). With the new layer selected, go to 'Filter > Blur > Gausian Blur'. Generally, setting the blur radius to 10.0 pixels will do just fine, but it doesn't hurt to play around with it, seeing what you prefer.
After blurring the top layer, your image will just look really blurry, and that won't do. You'll have to lower the opacity to get the desired effect. 50% usually works, but, again, mess around with it and see what you like. After having done so, the final result should look something like this.
There is an extra step that can be used to give your picture that shiney/glowey look, but that doesn't work too well with images that aren't taken in a studio with proper lighting. As you can see
here, it just makes the image look brighter.
For the extra step, finding the right image can be much more difficult. Professional photo shoots are the way to go. For this extra step, I'll be using this photo of a Porsche 911 GT2, courtesy of AllCarWallpapers.com.
This is a near perfect example of what to look for for this extra step; low ambient light, high contrast, defined reflections, etc.
You'll do everything to this photo that was done with the Aston Martin photo, after which, should look like this:
For the next step, hide the top (blurred) layer, and select the magic wand tool. Right-click on the image, select 'Color Range...', and select 'Highlights' from the drop-down menu in the window that comes up.
With the highlights selected, go to 'Select > Feather...', and feather the selection. 10-25 pixels usually works well enough, depending on the selection (for this photo, I feathered the selection by 10 pixels). Create a new layer (Ctrl+Shift+N) above the other two layers, fill the selection with white, and lower the opacity. I usually set the opacity to 50%, but for this photo, I left the opacity at 100%. Unhide the blurred layer and you're done. The final result should look like this:
