What it does: Mirage creates a mysterious soft pulsing luminosity to simulate a dream or other mood.
How to use it: First, a quick explanation of how Mirage works: Mirage take a brightness range within the image then blurs and colors it. It does this with built in animation to make the range change over time, resulting in fascinating pulsing color and light behavior. So, start by setting the Strength and Emphasis of the blur and dial up the amount of Color to add to the Mix. Then use the Wave controls to create the animation.
- The Soften group sets how the mirage effect is applied.
- Strength adjusts the strength of the blur effect in the mirage.
- Emphasis adjusts the range of the blur. Turn it down to accentuate just the lightest parts of the image, turn it up to blur everything.
- The Color group injects a color that is blended with the blurred part of the image.
- Color sets the color to blend in.
- Mix sets the amount of color to add.
- The Wave group sets the animation behavior of the Mirage.
- Shape sets the pulsating behavior of the blurring. At its simplest (lowest setting) the shape simple takes the image from soft to clear in one pass. At the most complex, the image alternates between blurred and clear multiple times through the luminance levels, resulting in a ribbed, almost metallic, look.
- Strength sets the influence of the shape control. When turned down, nothing happens. When turned up, the image takes on the look defined by the Shape control, with motion determined by the Speed control.
- Speed determines how quickly the blur rotates through the luminance levels.
- Offset sets the initial animation position. This is particularly useful when Speed is set to 0, allowing selection of a particular point in the animation