Lens flare

[Juan]

Hi all,

Maybe this is a long shot, but worth to try, I have noticed that the lens flare in PL is a little basic, so what about improving this area a little?
I was checking this and I don´t know if is really way out of order to somehow introduce it in PL: http://www.mpi-inf.mpg.de/resources/lensflareRendering/ I don´t know if requires a real 3D model or can be translated into 2D for post-production work.
Personally in digging a little into long exposure 3D rendering and lens flare, glow are pretty common in this kind of pictures and doing this at render time is a real killer with tight deadlines, that´s why maybe having a proper tool in post-production could bring benefits to this kind of pictures.

Cheers
Juan

[bkh]

The paper is marked patent pending, so it's not advisable to use the code in PL.

Otoh, the lens flares in PL are simple .pld files (on OS X, inside the application package, they are in the folder Resources -> Defaults -> LensFlares). You could easily add your own lens flares there (computer generated ones or photographed ones — use a flashlight at night to create lens flares before a black background).

Cheers

Burkhard.

[Juan]

The paper is marked patent pending, so it's not advisable to use the code in PL.

Good eye, I didn´t notice it.

Otoh, the lens flares in PL are simple .pld files (on OS X, inside the application package, they are in the folder Resources -> Defaults -> LensFlares). You could easily add your own lens flares there (computer generated ones or photographed ones — use a flashlight at night to create lens flares before a black background).

That´s pretty cool and even the flares can be vector shapes, what do you think about having control over each element that belong to that "flares file"? I mean that if I create my custom lens flare that has 3 layers and save it in the preset folder and then on the lens flare dialog I have 3 controllers one per layer where size, aspect ratio (important for anamorphic shapes), scale, brightness and maybe hue as well can be adjusted separated.
I guess this would be a improvement to this effect.

Cheers
Juan

[SCX]

The build-in lensflares are not very nice, so I use brushes. PL can use Photoshop-brushes and you find a lot of them on the internet. But read the licence of the brushes before using them.

[Juan]

PL can use Photoshop-brushes and you find a lot of them on the internet

Thanks, I found http://www.deviantart.com/ a great source.

But read the licence of the brushes before using them.

Always good to keep it in mind.

Cheers
Juan

[SCX]

Deviantart is a very good source for all kind of stuff. I found the source of my prefered lensflare-brushes and it is also deviantart.

http://zimmette-stock.deviantart.com/ar ... -273705276

They are free for personal use and it is nice but not required to name the author of the brushes on your work (which would be a little bit odd, because how should I know after a year where the brushes came from).

[Juan]

Nice one
I found this as well, free for personal and commercial use http://colorburned.com/?s=flare&submit=Search.

One thing that is common to do is create a new layer fill with black and set the blending mode to screen and there paint the lensflares, so it goes in a almost non-destructive way.

Cheers
Juan

PS. Too bad that PL can´t open Illustrators files .ai, I found some lensflare in vector shapes.