Ok, I’ll probably go with the Akihabara picture (the first). I have already prepared all the pictures. As soon as I have written something I’ll send it to you (can you read word files?). Thanks for the offer. 
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As long as the word file can be read by LibreOffice, yes. But the site articles are authored in Markdown, which is a pretty simple plain text format. Are you familiar with markdown? The bonus of markdown is that it can easily be versioned with git.
How is that different from a normal bloom filter? The residual layer is basically a blurred version of the image, and merging that with grain merge should add some light spill around highlights and darken the shadows.
@houz I haven’t looked into the bloom filter yet. But I do not use the residual in grain merge mode I use it in color mode. I use the coarsest scale in grain merge mode.
@paperdigits I’ll have a look at Markdown.
For those interested I have created a Flickr album with pictures processed with this technique:
Hi.
Very interesting.
I tried this technique. I found that using the “residual” layer in Color mode (Color HSV) actually reduces saturation in the image, deafening the original colors. Using one of the higher numbered scales in Grain Merge mode scales is working.
Dario
This is a cool technique. Here is my attempt using a night-time photo I took of the Galata Tower in Istanbul last October. I used the G’MIC plugin in GIMP to split the wavelets (Details > Split Details [Layers]) with “9” levels (8 details and the residuals). I then loaded these on top of the original image as layers.
I used “Dodge” merge mode to merge the residual colors onto the original image, setting the residual layer’s opacity to 35. I thought “Dodge” merge mode worked better than “Color” mode, as it really made the more colorful parts of the image brighter.
I then used the “Grain Merge” mode to merge the two coarsest levels of details onto that. In G’MIC it labels them coasest to finest (1 - n), so that was levels 1 and 2. I left the opacity of level 1 at 100%, but reduced level 2 to 50%.
Here is the original image:
Here’s the version after doing this procedure:
Pretty cool!
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Yes that may happen. Basically you are blurring colors, so if for instance you have a colored wall and a bright white light in front of it, the residual will be a mixture of the color and the white. So, naturally it will be paler, more desaturated. I have also experienced it and I actually like the look on some pictures. But if you don’t like it, just pull the saturation back up afterwards. I have done this on some occasions.
Let me see what you come up with, I’m curious. 
Here’s one with out the grain merges with coarse detail wavelets, but just using “Dodge” blending of the residuals back with the original image. As before, the opacity of the residuals is 35%.
Nice picture, Isaac. It’s fun how the lights just go pop!
Only thing is, something happened to your shadows, they are very noisy in the after picture.
Ok, here the noise is not that strong. That means that the coarse wavelet layers do that, which seems strange to me as they shouldn’t amplify things on such a small scale??
BTW, does anybody know what size the levels in Gimp’s wavelet decompose are?
And what size in the G’mic Plugin?
Yes, I noticed that noise too. Seemed strange that the coarse details did that? I like it better without the grain merges. I wonder if there is a better way to tune the wavelet decompose so that the residuals and details are blurred just enough for the right pop?
Did you blur the details?
For me, using the opacity on the wavelet scale level to regulate the amount of pop worked fine.
Ok, I think I’ve figured it out. I needed to tune the wavelet decompose procedure in G’MIC first. Here’s a screen capture of how I did that:
And here is the resulting image with the residual merged in “dodge” mode, and the two coarsest levels of details merged with “grain merge”:
I think the trick was making the extracted details more “blurry”.
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Cross post! Yes, I think it had to do with “blurring” the coarse details before merging.
Interesting, the dodge instead of color mode changes the effect totally.
Here’s your picture with my recipe:
Ok, in G’MIC, Details > Split Details [Layers], I selected 9 as the number of scales, 18 as the base scale, and 9 as the detail scale. Run the filter, merge the residuals with "dodge’ blending at 30% opacity, and the coarsest level of details also with “dodge” blending and 45% opacity. Here’s what it looks like (I think best of my attempts so far):
Still some noise in the blacks, but the picture was taken with my cell phone, which is pretty noisy. I think it’s an acceptable compromise for the result.
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Oh interesting! Yes, I see the difference immediately. Yours is more subdued, whereas mine are all pretty “in your face.” Interesting indeed!
This was your cellphone!!! 
Awesome!
Your last one is the best.
Thank you! 
It’s a google Nexus 5x. The camera on the 5x is actually startlingly good!