How do I create a skin glow with an adjustment layer?

[.Ava.]

I typically create a skin glow by duplicating the video layer, isolating the highlight with lumetri color, using a luma key and a gaussian blur and setting the blending mode to screen. It's beautiful and I love it, but because I duplicate the video, it drastically increasing export time.

I tried achieving this with just an adjustment layer, but it's strange because the whole layer is black except for the highlights (which is good), but then even when I change the blending mode to screen, it's still black, which I didn't think should be possible with screen.

Be mindful that I'm not an expert, and I'm relatively new to After Effects.

Thanks!

[Mylenium]

You misunderstand how adjustment layers work. The blending mode will have to be set in the effect itself.

Mylenium

[.Ava.]

Oh, okay. How would I go about doing that?