Does the After Effects community need another glow plug-in? The short answer is yes.  Don't get me wrong, I am a huge fan of the smooth look that the After Effects Glow effect can deliver, especially at 32-bpc. But, I can't help but feel at times that it's a bit limited. The A/B color mapping could use a lot more color control.  Plus, the added CPU expense of rendering in a higher color depth can get costly. Plus, there's no control over the area of the glow short of using an Adjustment Layer.

Introducing : Radium Glow

Radium Glow is a powerful new glow plug-in collection from Red Giant Software.   This suite of plug-ins has enormous control over glow area, color, glow shape, and much more.  It promises "pinpoint control over the glow, with editable shapes that can generate precise outlines or create glimmering points."  So with all this control and with such a big name behind it, should it be a part of your plug-in arsenal?

Radium Glow delivers everything that it promises: detailed control over various glow effects delivered via its three different plug-ins: Radium Glow, Radium Glow Lite, Radium Glow Edge.  To see where Radium Glow has the edge over the built-in AE Glow, I tried a few comparison tests, using motion graphics samples and some high definition footage.

Radium Glow on Motion Design Elements

First, I tried some basic glow effects from the Retro Graphics tutorial. To do this, I tried to do similar adjustments the same parameters in both effects: radius, intensity and threshold, adding additional Falloff and Quality adjustments in Radium Glow.  In the image on the left, you can see how Radium Glow delivers a much deeper glow at 8 bpc than one could ever hope to achieve with the Adobe AE Glow. In fact, AE Glow flounders here and with much tweaking, delivers, at best, an weak glow effect.

Also note: I see no significant changes in Radium Glow when running 8, 16 or 32bpc; the output seems to look very consistent.

So, what are the pros and cons to run AE at a higher color depth, versus Radium Glow at 8 bpc? One can shave off a modest amount of render time by staying in 8bpc with Radium Glow, but after several tests the render time differences aren't significant between Radium Glow at 8 bpc and AE Glow at 32bpc - I even had charts and graphs planned! 

However, one huge disadvantage to Radium Glow is a flicker in the glow that happens with moving objects.  And to be fair, I sat with the plug-in for an hour using both Radium Glow and Radium Glow Edge to produce a nice glow effect on my text, rendering in 1:1 Quality.  On any given frame, it looks great.  But, once it moves, in this example that I am using, the glow flickers very badly. In several tests with slowly moving, sharp graphical elements, I had this same flicker.  However, my AE Glow that ships with my copy of After Effects does not do this at all.  This is kind of a disappointment and is probably a deal breaker for many motion designers. 

Radium Glow on Footage

So, how does it handle footage?  This is actually where Radium Glow shines.  I tested both Radium Glow and Glow Edge on some time elapsed footage of headlights and tailights. With some playful tweaking, I  got some fantastic shimmering glow effects.  The Glow Edge effect is much better at sort out the high-contrast areas in an image, like lights against a road.  Unfortunately, it lacks a Glow Layer input to define glow color.  I experimented with having Glow Edge output to only one channel, and then layered effects two on top of each other to get different colors and effects, especially when modifying the Radius and Threshold.  I had a lot of fun with this and I'd like to try to work these kind of glow effects into a project very soon.

The Verdict

I think what Radium Glow promises and delivers with gusto is exactly what might hold it back from being a plug-in you'll see on the box of most motion artists and editors.   Its precise control takes some knowledgeable tweaking to produce great results.  Personally, I've not been able to get flicker free results on small motion design elements, so I'll be sticking with AE Glow for this kind of thing.  That said, once you get a grasp on it, it's got fantastic control that will yield awesome looking glows on your footage and perhaps, final renders.

As for me, it's a welcome addition to my tools, and I hope to see some improvement in the area my one and only (yet a biggie) complaint: the flickering.  For only $99, it's worth a download of the demo version and trying it out. Before you do that, watch through John Dickinson's tutorial: Getting Started with Radium Glow to answer most of the questions you'll have on the plug-in before you first use it.

Summary: Red Giant Radium Glow

Pros:

• Detailed glow control over glow color, masking, and channels
• Custom glow shapes
• Great results in 8 bits per channel color
• Overbright protection
• Viewable map of glow area
• Reasonable price of $94 at Toolfarm

Cons:

• Glow flickers with small graphic elements
• Limited color control with Glow Edge