Bloom

Treat bloom as the broad tail of an imaging point-spread function. Its closest built-in optical input is all scene-linear HDR radiance. Selective contribution is an art-direction branch, not an automatic quality upgrade.

1. Validate the source scene

Capture scene-linear HDR, false-color pre-tone luminance, and the final image with bloom disabled. Repair the source when highlights were clamped or when silhouette, material, or lighting identity disappears without bloom.

This step is complete when the bloom-off scene remains readable and the input is unclamped scene-linear HDR in a declared working basis.

2. Choose the signal