Lens Flare Help...Help me achieve this look...

[eric-holmes]

You can see in the picture what kind of look I am going for, but I need help achieving it. I know I could have done it with the real lights but that wasn't an option.

The problems I am having:
-When I go to Filters>Render>Lens Flare, the dialog box is so small I can't precisely place my flare.
-There are several lights and I cannot place a flare on every light. I need some idea on how to make the whole of the lights look bright without having too big of a flare. To increase the flare size means increasing the brightness and that kind of screws with the whole picture.

Suggestions?

 

[Negative ISO]

Can you create new transparent layers and put the flares on different layers so you can move them around later?

 

[eric-holmes]

I don't think it is possible to select and move or free transform a flare. If it is I don't know how to do it.

Edit: if the flare is on a separate transparent layer, maybe you can free transform the whole layer, thus affecting it's size and shape.

 

[Negative ISO]

I most familiar with GIMP, and since I know it can be done there I have to believe it can be done in PS as well.

 

[Robin Usagani]

Eric, everytime you put the flare, then you press undo, it will remember the last location. Thats what I do, I just click undo and adjust the location. As far as putting light source at each ligh bulb I suggest just using clone tool after you put 1 flare.

 

[kalni]

The lens flare in PS is very primitive IMHO,

Well as far as positioning the flare is concerned, you can specify the exact
co-ordinates where you want to center the flare at by Alt+Click on the
preview image. So all you need to do is note down the coordinates where you
want to place it beforehand by using the info palette.

P.S - In Gimp you can zoom in on the preview itself to position it graphically.

 

[kalni]

There is another trick for repositioning a len flare but it doesn't always give
the results you expect. I don't remember it exactly but it involves creating a
new layer in hard light blend mode with 50% gray and putting a lens flare in it, then moving around the layer to reposition.

 

[eric-holmes]

There is another trick for repositioning a len flare but it doesn't always give
the results you expect. I don't remember it exactly but it involves creating a
new layer in hard light blend mode with 50% gray and putting a lens flare in it, then moving around the layer to reposition.

Bingo!

Here are the results for those who helped me out. Thanks to all. I'm sure with more practice this would be better.

 

[LCARSx32]

Is this like what you were envisioning?

You can move the flares my making a new layer, filling it with black, making a flare on that layer, then setting the layer's blending mode to "screen". Then you can just move the layer around. For the picture above, I made a new image that was twice as wide and twice as tall as the image and made the flares on there, then copied them to the original picture. That way, when I moved the flares, they didn't get cut off.

 

[LCARSx32]

Oops! Missed your reply. Your's turned out even better. Good job! :thumbup::thumbup:

 

[eric-holmes]

Oops! Missed your reply. Your's turned out even better. Good job! :thumbup::thumbup:

Thanks man, I just made a new layer of 50% grey then blended using hard light. I used one larger flare and cloned in the "bokeh lights"