How to Use Glare Node for Bloom in Blender

This guide demonstrates how to use the Glare node in Blender's Compositor to generate a customizable bloom or glow effect for your renders. You will learn how to enable the Compositor, insert the Glare node between your render layers and output, select the Fog Glow mode, and adjust key parameters like threshold, size, and mix values to achieve professional lighting effects in both EEVEE and Cycles.

Step 1: Enable the Compositor

  1. Open your Blender project and switch to the Compositing workspace from the top tab menu.
  2. Check the Use Nodes box in the header of the Compositor editor.
  3. You will see two default nodes: Render Layers and Composite.
  4. Press F12 to render your scene at least once so the Compositor has image data to process.

Step 2: Add and Connect the Glare Node

  1. Press Shift + A inside the Compositor workspace.
  2. Navigate to Filter > Glare and click to add the node.
  3. Drop the Glare node onto the connection line between the Render Layers node and the Composite node. The Image output of the Render Layers will automatically connect to the Image input of the Glare node, and the Glare node's Image output will connect to the Composite node.
  4. Press Shift + Ctrl + Left Click on the Glare node to add a Viewer node (with Node Wrangler enabled) so you can preview the effect directly in the background of the Compositor.

Step 3: Configure Glare for Bloom

By default, the Glare node is set to "Streaks." To achieve a soft bloom effect, change the mode:

  1. Click the dropdown menu at the top of the Glare node and select Fog Glow.
  2. Set the Quality setting to High for smoother gradients and higher-quality diffusion.

Step 4: Fine-Tune the Bloom Parameters

  • Threshold: Controls the brightness level required for an object to start glowing. Lower values (e.g., 0.5 to 0.8) make dimmer objects bloom, while higher values restrict the glow exclusively to intense emission sources.
  • Size: Controls the radius or spread of the bloom effect. This is an integer value from 6 to 9 (with 9 producing the widest, softest glow).
  • Mix: Controls the balance between the original rendered image and the generated glow effect.
    • -1.0 shows only the original image.
    • 0.0 blends the glow equally with the original render.
    • 1.0 isolates only the glow effect, which is useful if you want to export the bloom layer separately.

Step 5: Render the Final Result

Once you are satisfied with the look in the Viewer node, press F12 to perform a final render. Blender will automatically apply the Glare compositing pass to the final output, embedding the bloom effect into your saved image or animation.