Effects

The Effects section adds creative looks on top of your tonal and color edits. It has five tools: Creative, Spatial (Lens Blur, Relight, Fog), LUT, Vignette and Grain.

Creative

Slider	Range	What it does
Glow	0 to 100	A wide, soft, slightly warm bloom around bright areas. The more you add, the darker the tones that start to glow. Gives a dreamy, diffused look like a mist filter.
Halation	0 to 100	A tight red-orange halo around bright highlights, like on color film where light bounces back through the film layers. Very visible on street lights and window edges at night.
Light Flares	0 to 100	Adds a lens flare from the brightest light sources: starburst rays, a glow, ghost reflections mirrored through the image center and an iris pattern.

These are applied in linear light right after Exposure, so they react naturally to bright light sources. Starting points for a film look: Glow 10 to 20, Halation 5 to 15.

Two drone landscapes, each without and with Glow 45 — Glow 45 on two landscapes: a soft, dreamy light without lifting the shadows.

Four crops of a London night scene: original, Glow, Halation and Light Flares — Glow, Halation and Light Flares compared on a night scene.

Spatial

The Spatial tool contains three effects that use an AI depth map (how far away each pixel is) or normal map (which way each surface faces). The first time you turn one on, the map is calculated in the background. Maps are cached, so this only happens once per photo.

Spatial is hidden in AI-Free mode and is not available in masks.

Lens Blur

Simulates a shallow depth of field after the fact, with realistic bokeh.

Control	Range	Default	What it does
Lens Blur (switch)		Off	Turns it on.
Amount	0 to 100	40	Strength of the blur.
Diffusion	0 to 100	0	Softens the bokeh and adds a light bloom, for a gentler, more vintage lens character.
Bokeh Shape	Circular, Hexagonal, Octagonal, Bubble (Ring)	Circular	Shape of out-of-focus highlights. Bubble gives the ring-shaped bokeh of some vintage and mirror lenses.
Depth Range	Near to Far		Drag the two inner handles to choose which distance stays sharp. The outer handles set how gradually sharpness falls off.

Example: a portrait with a busy background. Set the Depth Range so only the near part (the person) is sharp, Amount 50, Circular bokeh. Street lights in the background become round highlights.

Hotel building: original, depth map, and with lens blur on the road in front and the hills behind — Original, the AI depth map, and Lens Blur at 70 with the building in focus and both the foreground and background blurred.

Relight

Adds virtual lights to the photo. Because RapidRAW knows the shape of the surfaces, light falls on faces and objects in a realistic 3D way.

Global controls:

Control	Range	Default	What it does
Ambient	−100 to +100	0	Darkens or brightens the existing light, so your added lights stand out more.
Softness	0 to 100	25	Softer, wider light.
Shine	0 to 100	0	Adds specular highlights, for glossy skin or metal.
Shadows (switch)		Off	Lets your lights cast shadows. Shadow Softness (default 15) blurs them.

Relight with a spot light: the light handle and its cone drawn on the photo, and the light settings in the panel — A Spot light with Ambient −80. Drag the round handle to move the light and the small dot to aim the beam.

Lights: click + (Add Light), then click or drag on the image to place it. Right-click a light for Duplicate Light or Remove Light. Each light has:

Control	Range	Default	For
Light Type	Point, Spot, Directional	Point
Light Color		white	All
Intensity	0 to 100	60	All
Depth	0 to 100	0	Point, Spot: how far into the scene the light sits
Falloff	0 to 100	30	Point, Spot: how quickly light fades with distance
Angle	0° to 360°	135	Spot, Directional: direction around the image
Elevation	−180° to +180°	60	Spot, Directional: how high the light comes from
Cone	0 to 100	40	Spot: width of the beam
Feather	0 to 100	50	Spot: softness of the beam edge
Temperature, Tint	−100 to +100	0	Color of the light

Example: a portrait in flat overcast light. Ambient −20, add a warm Directional light (Temperature +30) from the upper left (Angle 135, Elevation 45), Intensity 40. The face gets shape and a sunlit side.

Portrait original, its normal map, and the relit result with a warm point light — Original, the AI normal map, and the relit photo. Photo by Coco on Unsplash.

Fog

Adds realistic fog that gets thicker with distance.

Control	Range	Default	What it does
Fog (switch)		Off	Turns it on.
Amount	0 to 100	50	Overall strength.
Start	0 to 100	0	Distance where the fog begins. Raise it to keep the foreground clear.
Density	0 to 100	50	How quickly the fog thickens with distance.
Ground Fog	0 to 100	0	Makes fog settle low, near the ground, like morning mist in a valley.
Variation	0 to 100	25	Makes the fog patchy instead of even.
Glow	0 to 100	25	Light sources glow inside the fog.
Temperature, Tint	−100 to +100	0	Color of the fog.

Example: a forest at sunrise. Start 20, Density 40, Ground Fog 50, Temperature +20 for golden mist.

Railway tracks at sunset: original, the depth map, light fog and strong fog that thickens toward the distance — Original, the depth map, light fog and strong fog. Fog builds up with distance and takes its color from the scene.

LUT

LUT browser with previews of the built-in Film Emulations and imported custom LUTs — The LUT browser shows each LUT on your own photo.

A LUT (look-up table) maps every color to a new color, giving a complete look in one step. Click Select to open the LUT browser. Every entry shows a small preview of your photo, and hovering an entry previews it on the main image.

Film Emulations are built in, based on the open-source spektrafilm project:

F-Pro 400H
K-Ektar 100
K-Gold 200
K-Portra 400
K-Vision 250D Cinematic
K-Vision 500T Cinematic

These are applied to the full-range light data in place of the tone mapper, so they handle highlights like real film: bright areas roll off softly instead of clipping.

An aerial shot of a road winding through autumn forest, shown without a film look and with each of the six built-in film emulations — The six built-in film emulations on the same photo.

Custom LUTs: click Import profiles to add your own .cube or .3dl files, or Hald CLUT images (.png, .jpg, .jpeg, .tiff). You can import several at once. Right-click a custom LUT to remove it. Custom LUTs are applied to the final image, after curves.

Control	What it does
Intensity	0 to 100 (default 100). Blends the LUT with the image without it. Appears once a LUT is selected.
× (Clear LUT)	Removes the LUT. Clicking the selected LUT again also removes it.

You can use one LUT at a time, either a film emulation or a custom one. Film emulations don't add grain or halation: add those with the Grain and Halation sliders for the complete film look.

New to this? What's a LUT?

A LUT (look-up table) says "for this input color, output that color". Filmmakers use them to give a whole movie the same look. Most LUTs you can buy online are .cube files and work in RapidRAW. Pick one, lower Intensity to taste, and you have a base look in seconds.

Vignette

Darkens or lightens the edges of the frame to guide the eye.

Slider	Range	Default	What it does
Amount	−100 to +100	0	Negative darkens the edges. Positive fades them toward white.
Midpoint	0 to 100	50	Where the vignette starts. Lower values reach further into the image.
Roundness	−100 to +100	0	0 gives a round vignette. Negative follows the shape of the frame (more rectangular). Positive pushes the effect into the corners.
Feather	0 to 100	50	Softness of the transition.

The center is movable. When you change a vignette slider, a marker appears on the image. Drag it onto your subject to center the vignette there.

The vignette is applied before the tone mapper, so it darkens like real lens falloff instead of a grey overlay. For a vignette shaped around a specific object, use a Radial mask with negative Exposure.

Grain

Adds film grain.

Slider	Range	Default	What it does
Amount	0 to 100	0	How visible the grain is.
Size	0 to 100	25	Grain size. Low values look like fine 100 ISO film, high values like pushed 3200 ISO film.
Roughness	0 to 100	50	Mixes in coarser grain for a more irregular, organic look.

The grain is monochrome (like black-and-white film grain) and strongest in the midtones, fading in deep shadows and bright highlights, like real film. Its size scales with the image, so the look is the same in the preview and in the export. Grain is the very last step, after everything else.

Starting points: subtle 35 mm look Amount 15, Size 20, Roughness 40. Gritty street look Amount 35, Size 45, Roughness 70.

Order of effects

RapidRAW always applies effects in this order, no matter which slider you touch first:

Relight, Fog, Lens Blur (calculated before everything else).
Glow, Halation, Light Flares (right after Exposure).
White balance, tone and color adjustments.
Vignette.
Tone mapper, or a film emulation in its place.
Brightness and Curves.
Custom LUT.
Grain.

In masks

Effect	In masks
Glow, Halation	Yes
Light Flares	No
Lens Blur, Relight, Fog	No
LUT and film emulations	No
Vignette	No (use a Radial mask)
Grain	No