Ways to learn how to edit light painting in CS5?

[NeyugN]

Hello there, I want to try my luck with a little bit of night photography and I figured a good place to start would be with light painting. I have a car event I'm going to this weekend, and was wondering if there was anyone out there that could point me in the right direction on how layering in photoshop works with light painting? Not sure if I'm wording what I'm looking for correctly, but hopefully everyone understands what I'm asking and can help any way possible.

Thank you very much,
John

 

[NeyugN]

Something like this would be what I am looking to do. I talked to the person that did this shot shortly, and he said he used 7 layers to fully light up the whole car. Now I get the concept of what he was talking about, but not fully.

All help is appreciated.

John