LayerStyle: OuterGlow V2

Photoshop's Outer Glow, in ComfyUI: a soft halo radiating outward from your subject's edge into the background. It's the classic backlit or "magic aura" look - a rim of light bleeding out around a shape rather than brightening the inside of it. This is V2, the current revision.

What changed from V1

Same controls as the original OuterGlow - same brightness, range, blur, two-color setup. The difference is blend_mode: V2 ships the full 30-mode Photoshop list instead of V1's shorter 19-entry set, which matters here specifically because a glow effect wants an additive blend mode (screen, linear dodge(add)) to read as light rather than a colored smear, and V2's list gives you the complete, correctly-named set to pick from.

How it works

From the mask's boundary, the glow blooms outward into the background - glow_range sets the reach, blur softens the falloff. Two colors: light_color for the bright core near the edge, glow_color for where it fades to as it spreads. The result composites onto the background at your chosen opacity and blend mode.

The inputs and outputs that matter

• brightness (2–20, default 5) - glow intensity; the default undersells the effect, push it up for a visible halo.
• glow_range (default 48) - how far the glow spreads outward.
• blur - softens the glow-to-background transition.
• light_color / glow_color (hex, defaults #FFBF30 / #FE0000).
• invert_mask (default true) - flip if the glow ends up inside the subject instead of around it.
• background_image, layer_image, optional layer_mask, opacity, and blend_mode (30 options).

Output: a single composited image.

How to install it

Ships with the ComfyUI Layer Style pack. ComfyUI Manager → search ComfyUI Layer Style → install → restart. Manual:

cd ComfyUI/custom_nodes
git clone https://github.com/chflame163/ComfyUI_LayerStyle
pip install -r ComfyUI_LayerStyle/requirements.txt

then restart. Lives under 😺dzNodes → LayerStyle. No models needed.

Common issues & troubleshooting

Glow appears inside the subject instead of around it. invert_mask - flip it. It's the pack's most reliable gotcha and the symptom here (inner instead of outer) is a dead giveaway.

Halo looks like a dirty ring instead of glowing light. You've likely landed on a darkening blend mode. With 30 options now available it's easy to pick the wrong family - stick to screen or linear dodge(add) for a genuine light-emitting look; multiply-family modes will darken the background around the edge instead.

Effect too weak. Raise brightness first (5 is conservative), then widen glow_range, then check opacity.

Node missing from your palette entirely. Pack-level import failure. LayerStyle's dependency chain is long, and transformers clashing with a stray TensorFlow install is the recurring way the whole pack fails to load at once - every LayerStyle and LayerUtility node disappears together. Check the startup console or hit "Try Fix" in Manager.