Cinestill style halation in digital photos

I have recently been shooting cinestill and have found the halation that comes from having the anti-halation layer removed to be quite a distinct look that is not often seen. I decided that it would be fun to see if I could recreate this look in my digital photos. I came across a reddit thread with a method to create halation.

Here a few examples of me trying the method described by /u/westborn.

If you liked the results let me show you how to do it.

First this effect works best of images that have a bright light that is surrounded by a dark colour (like the stair lighting).

Load the image into photoshop

Now you want to duplicate the image layer and convert it into a smart object

Now create a threshold adjustment for the smart object and set the threshold so only the bright lights are whites

Collapse the smart object and its threshold adjustment into a single smart object and apply some blur

The more blur the further the halation will spread - if you have too much blur the white areas will dissipate completely into the black and there will be no halation though

Now change the blending mode of the smart object to screen and duplicate the layer.

Now create a new empty layer, create a clipping mask to the smart object (right click the empty layer and click create clipping mask) and then fill the empty layer with red.

Change the blending mode of the red layer to linear burn.

Now depending on you image you may need to do some adjustments to bring out the halation. Adjust the levels, blur and curves of the smart objects below the red layer till you get a result you are happy with.

Now you can import and edit in lightroom. This does not replicate the look of CineStill but does give the distinct halation of CineStill. Below are some some examples of shots taken on CineStill 800t film and some edited Digital photos. I still prefer the film.

Show me your results by tagging me (@wzimmz) on your images on instagram!