Free Pro Mist Effect (No Plugins)

That dreamy blooming of the highlights you see in film, where bright areas softly glow, is an effect called halation. It happens naturally on film stock, and since most of us shoot digital, we either buy something like a Pro Mist filter to recreate it, or we build it in post. Here's how to do it in Final Cut for free.

Duplicate and key out everything but the highlights

First, copy your clip and place it above the original, easiest way is to hold Option and drag it up. On that top clip, add a Luma Keyer, which lets us cut out the parts of the image we don't want and keep only the brightest parts. Click the middle matte view so you can see what you're doing (or disable the bottom clip by selecting it and pressing V), then drag the shadow slider to key out the darker parts. How much you key out depends on your shot and the look you're after, on a shot with a flame, for example, I keyed out almost everything so the glow only happens around the fire.

Blur it into a glow

Switch back to the original view and add a Gaussian blur to that top clip. It'll immediately give you that soft rolloff on the highlights, but it's usually way too much, so bring the blur amount down to zero and slowly find the point that looks good to you. I've also found the blur boost helps, bump it up, then lower the opacity of the top clip until the glow feels right.

Add the red halation tint (optional)

Classic film halation usually has a distinct red tint. It's up to you, sometimes it looks great and sometimes I leave it out. On a shot with a bright light source like a flame, I like it. After keying and blurring, bring up your color wheels (Command 6) and drag the highlights slider toward a reddish orange, tweaking saturation and exposure until it looks right. As always, if it's too much, just pull back the opacity of that top clip.