AFTER EFFECTS PLUGIN · BLING

ASheng
Bling

Make the picture sparkle,
with one click.

Turn the brightest spots in text, photos or night scenes into twinkling star spikes; add slash lights, rings, bokeh and glitter, sweep a bright band across the picture, or reveal and dissolve images and text along a sparkling edge. Ready-made presets for gold titles, night scenes and portraits look right straight away, with sliders for everything if you want to fine-tune.

Apple Silicon · M seriesmacOS 14 or laterAfter Effects 2026GPU accelerated

15 USD · 365-day license · 1 Mac

Buy license ↗Download for Mac Already licensed? Activate

Output is watermarked until a license is activated. A license starts when the purchase completes and does not auto-renew; buy another when it expires. The Golden Pass already includes Bling. The live plan on the purchase page sets the price.

Golden Title

Click to switch · every frame is rendered by the plugin (built-in presets, no post-processing)

Star shapes

Six star shapes,
same night scene, only the shape changes.

“Star Shape” offers cross, cross + fine, 8-point, 6-point, hairline glint and slash light. Size, size variation, count, spacing, brightness and randomness are all sliders; the halo around the spikes is adjusted separately. The six images below are the same night scene and settings, only the shape changes.

Night scene with cross star spikes — **Cross**The classic four-point sparkle.

Night scene with cross plus fine rays — **Cross + Fine**A cross with an extra layer of thin diagonal rays.

Night scene with 8-point stars — **8-Point**Eight spikes; bright stars really stand out.

Night scene with 6-point stars — **6-Point**Six spikes, like light scraped off aperture blades.

Night scene with hairline glints — **Hairline Glint**Long, thin crosses with a finer look.

Night scene with slash lights — **Slash Light**One diagonal streak per highlight; choose one, two or three lines.

Placement

Follow the brightest spots,
or scatter across the whole layer.

“Placement” has two modes: “Highlights” finds the brightest points and puts stars there, ideal for night scenes, metal and text with highlights; “Scatter in Layer” ignores brightness and sprinkles stars across the whole layer, for a sky full of stars. Both have spacing and count; “Based On” can be luminance or alpha.

Night scene with stars following the highlights — **Highlights**Stars appear only on points that are already bright.

Night scene with stars scattered across the whole layer — **Scatter in Layer**Bright or not, the whole layer is sprinkled with stars.

Rings, bokeh, glitter

Beyond star spikes,
three more sparkling elements.

Each element has its own switch, so use them alone or stacked. Rings are concentric circles around each highlight, with radius, line width and rainbow tint; bokeh is out-of-focus discs with round, hexagonal, octagonal or pentagonal apertures; glitter is fine sparkling dust around each highlight, with count, spread, size spread and twinkle. All three follow the highlights, so they line up with the star spikes. In the first three images the stars are shrunk on purpose so you can see the elements themselves.

Rings on a night scene — **Rings**Concentric rings around each highlight.

Bokeh discs on a night scene — **Bokeh**Out-of-focus hexagonal discs.

Glitter on a night scene — **Glitter**Fine sparkling dust drifting around each highlight.

Night scene with stars, rings, bokeh and glitter together — **All together**Stars, rings, bokeh and glitter switched on at once.

Color and fill style

Gold, ice blue, rose pink,
even the texture of the light can change.

“Color” offers original (follows the picture), solid and gradient; a solid color can be anything, with a tint slider so you can keep some of the original. “Fill Style” swaps the solid light for halftone dots, lines, rings, crosshatch, pixels or CMY dots, and the pattern can stay still, pulse, flow or rotate.

Night scene with original-color stars — **Original**The star color comes from the picture itself.

Night scene with gold stars — **Solid · Gold**Everything tinted the same gold.

Night scene with ice-blue stars — **Solid · Ice Blue**Cool-toned stars.

Night scene with rose-pink stars — **Solid · Rose Pink**Pink stars.

Stars with solid fill — **Solid**The default light.

Stars with halftone fill — **Halftone**Light made of printed-looking dots.

Stars with line fill — **Lines**Light made of diagonal lines.

Stars with ring fill — **Rings**Light made of tiny rings.

Stars with crosshatch fill — **Crosshatch**Light made of crossing fine lines.

Stars with CMY dot fill — **CMY Dots**Cyan, magenta and yellow dots, like color printing.

⏩ Sweeps and transitions

No keyframes,
the light moves by itself.

“⏩ Sweep” runs a bright band across the picture, looping or once, straight or circular, and stars can appear only where the band passes. “⏩ Transition Mode” reveals or dissolves images and text along a sparkling edge, or both: timing follows the layer’s in and out points, and each segment of a split layer runs its own; stars, rings, bokeh and glitter appear only near the edge and are gone once the transition ends. “⏩ Flicker” and “⏩ Drift” let the stars breathe and wander. All four clips below are built-in presets.

Logo reveal sweepOne pass of the band and the logo is in place.

Transition · Stardust IrisCircular edge; text appears from the center outward.

Transition · Ring FlashRings burst along a circular edge.

Transition · Cyber RevealStraight edge, slash lights and RGB split.

Lens RGB split

Give the light a touch of lens chromatic aberration.

The “Lens” group is off by default. Switched on, the red, green and blue channels shift apart: “Lens” mode separates more toward the edges of the frame, “Direction” shifts a fixed way; apply it to the light only or to the whole picture. The three images below are the same night scene: no split, light only, whole picture.

Night scene with no RGB split — **Off**Plain stars.

Night scene with RGB split on the light only — **Light only**Red and blue fringing on the star edges.

Night scene with RGB split on the whole picture — **Whole image**The background splits too.

15 built-in presets

Gold titles, night scenes, portraits, transitions,
one click to apply.

15 presets come built in: Golden Title, Jewelry Sweep, Logo Reveal Sweep, City Night Stars, Ember Sparks, Glitter Scatter, Anime Twinkle, Winter Frost, Slash Light, Lens RGB Split, and five transitions (Golden Surge, Stardust Iris, Ring Flash, Dust Out, Cyber Reveal). Each is a complete parameter snapshot: apply it, fine-tune, and save your own; the library is shared, so your saved presets live alongside. All thumbnails are rendered by the plugin.

Golden Title preset, actual render — **Golden Title**

⏩ Jewelry Sweep preset, actual render — **⏩ Jewelry Sweep**

⏩ Logo Reveal Sweep

⏩ City Night Stars preset, actual render — **⏩ City Night Stars**

⏩ Ember Sparks preset, actual render — **⏩ Ember Sparks**

⏩ Glitter Scatter preset, actual render — **⏩ Glitter Scatter**

⏩ Anime Twinkle preset, actual render — **⏩ Anime Twinkle**

Winter Frost preset, actual render — **Winter Frost**

Slash Light preset, actual render — **Slash Light**

Lens RGB Split preset, actual render — **Lens RGB Split**

⏩ Transition · Golden Surge preset, actual render — **⏩ Transition · Golden Surge**

⏩ Transition · Stardust Iris preset, actual render — **⏩ Transition · Stardust Iris**

⏩ Transition · Ring Flash preset, actual render — **⏩ Transition · Ring Flash**

⏩ Transition · Dust Out preset, actual render — **⏩ Transition · Dust Out**

⏩ Transition · Cyber Reveal preset, actual render — **⏩ Transition · Cyber Reveal**

Free Mix, areas, stacking,
and GPU acceleration.

“Free Mix” has a “Shuffle” button that randomly picks a star shape and a combination and strength of rings, bokeh, glitter, slash light and lens RGB split; when you like one, fine-tune and save it as a preset. “Area” keeps every element near 1 to 5 points you choose, fading with distance. “Stacking” puts the light on top, the source on top, or outputs light only (handy for compositing yourself). “Stay Inside” is on by default with “Centers Inside”: the centers of stars, rings, bokeh and glitter stay within the text while the spikes can reach out; “Clip Everything” clips the spikes at the text edge too, and off removes the limit. “GPU Acceleration” is on by default and uses the Apple Silicon GPU (Metal); if the GPU is unavailable it falls back to the CPU with the same picture. 8-, 16- and 32-bit color are all supported.

Getting started

Three steps to get going.

Requires an Apple Silicon (M-series) Mac, macOS 14 or later and After Effects 2026. No Intel Mac or Windows version yet.

Download the installer
Click “Download for Mac” on this page and unzip. The installer is notarized by Apple.
Quit AE, then install
Save your project, quit After Effects completely with Cmd+Q, then open the installer; the 15 built-in presets are added to the library at the same time.
Add it to the layer that should sparkle
Reopen AE, find ASheng_Bling in the “ASheng - Light” category, add it to a text, photo or video layer, then pick a preset or set the star shape, spacing and count yourself.

Good to know

Where is it in AE?

In the Effect menu under “ASheng - Light”, named ASheng_Bling.

Does the Golden Pass cover it?

Yes. The Golden Pass includes every ASheng AE plugin, including future ones, so Bling activates right away.

What kind of footage suits it?

Anything with highlights: gold or metallic text, city lights at night, products and photos with specular highlights. For footage without highlights, set “Placement” to “Scatter in Layer” to sprinkle stars over the whole layer.

Can I output only the light and composite it myself?

Yes. Set “Stacking” to “Light Only” and the output contains only the light on transparency.

Which bit depths are supported?

8-, 16- and 32-bit are all supported.

Does it use the GPU?

Yes. “GPU Acceleration” is on by default and renders on the Apple Silicon GPU (Metal); if the GPU is unavailable it falls back to the CPU with the same picture, just slower.

Does it support Premiere Pro?

After Effects only for now.

Can I use it without a license?

You can try it with a watermark on the output. With a valid Bling license or a Golden Pass, click “Activate / Manage” in the “License” group of the effect panel to activate.

See the Golden Pass All plugins

ASheng Bling

Six star shapes,same night scene, only the shape changes.

Follow the brightest spots,or scatter across the whole layer.

Beyond star spikes,three more sparkling elements.

Gold, ice blue, rose pink,even the texture of the light can change.

No keyframes,the light moves by itself.