How to create a glossy bloom effect in The GIMP (abused to death in certain video games). Sorry if the images are big, my image capture program has had some sort of brain hemorrhage and will only produce XBOX FRIGGIN' HUEG images in postscript format that I have to convert to png, but by then, they have crappy quality that's only legible if they are this big (or you have glasses, which I really need to get.) Anyway, all the large images have smaller data size than the avatar size limit, so I don't think it should be a problem if you're on a modem.
Anyway, we're after this effect:
Select start image:
Duplicate layer, edit the new layer's color with the Curve tool, you'll want something like this.
The layer ought to look something like this (only the most colorful parts should be prominent):
Set the layer to "screen" mode.
Apply heavy gaussian blur to the layer.
Open the layer's curve again, try make it as bright and colorful as you can. Something like this:
Ta-daa:
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