Adobe Camera Raw 18.6 Adds a Glow Tool That's Actually Worth Using
PhotographyAdobe has added a genuine creative tool to Camera Raw 18.6 — not an AI-branded preset relabel, but a configurable optical effect with three distinct modes, maskable to specific subjects.
Why This Category / Comparison Matters
Camera Raw updates often land as incremental adjustments to sliders most photographers already had memorized. The 18.6 Glow tool is different: it adds a family of optical light effects that previously required Photoshop layer blending modes or third-party plugins to achieve cleanly in a RAW workflow.
What Makes It Different
The Glow tool has three modes, each simulating a different physical light behavior:
Diffusion applies a soft, general luminosity spread — most useful for environmental haze, fog, or a soft wash over a scene. Bloom concentrates glow around brighter areas of the image, mimicking the edge-spill characteristic of fast lenses in high-contrast scenes. Halation simulates the warm red bloom that occurs when light bleeds into adjacent layers of film emulsion — a film-stock effect that has been in high demand since the resurgence of film aesthetic presets.
All three modes work inside the masking system. That integration is the operationally significant part: you can apply Halation specifically to specular highlights in a portrait background, or Bloom to a backlit hair rim, without affecting the rest of the frame. This was the missing piece in earlier glow-adjacent tools, which applied effects globally and required manual layer juggling to isolate them.
The update is ACR-only — Lightroom is not receiving the Glow tool in this cycle. Photographers working in a Lightroom-primary workflow will need to open files in Camera Raw via Photoshop to access it.
Other additions in 18.6 include the Trim tool (non-destructive cropping with aspect ratio constraints) and an expanded Metadata Info Panel that surfaces file technical data without navigating to a separate dialog.
The Catch / Who It’s For
The ACR-only restriction is a real limitation for Lightroom-primary shooters, which is most portrait and event photographers using Adobe’s ecosystem. The effect is also intentionally stylistic — Halation in particular has a strong aesthetic signature that won’t suit commercial or documentary work requiring neutral color reproduction.
The So What
When Adobe adds a tool to Camera Raw that photographers will actually reach for, it’s worth noting. The Glow tool’s three-mode approach covers enough of the optical light-effect space to replace external plugins for most use cases, and maskable application changes what’s possible in a non-destructive RAW workflow. The ACR-only limitation is frustrating — but for photographers already comfortable moving between Lightroom and Camera Raw, 18.6 adds something genuinely useful.
Source: DPReview
Content created with AI assistance and reviewed for accuracy.
Join the conversation
Stack Insiders is our free community for readers who want to go deeper — share resources, ask questions, and connect with others across every vertical we cover.
Join Stack Insiders →