Yes—this look is often created in-camera with diffusion, then enhanced in post. A soft/diffusion filter can make bright light bloom and spread; even a smudged clear filter can produce a crude version.

In post, the basic method is to isolate the brightest areas, blur them, and blend them back over the image:

1. Duplicate the image or copy the bright highlight area to a new layer.
2. Set that layer to a brightening blend mode such as Lighten.
3. Apply Gaussian Blur until the hard highlight spreads into a soft glow.
4. Adjust layer opacity to control how strong the bloom looks.

Some Photoshop filters, such as Diffuse Glow, automate a similar process by selecting bright regions, diffusing them, and merging them back.

So the key is not just raising highlights/whites globally; it’s creating a separate blurred highlight layer so the light blooms softly into nearby tones. Deep shadows can help the effect feel stronger, but the glow itself comes from diffusion/bloom rather than histogram clipping alone.