YOUR SOLUTION, SIR:

First, always remember that the main features of the image are your warm, inviting windows and doors. Not only should they be the brightest items in the picture, obviously, but should also contain the brightest, most vibrant white (you are using orange light, so bleed slowly to yellow and make sure there are some bright whites in there in the middle). The elements surrounding the light should get progressively darker until they reach the ultimate black at the corner of the canvas. Don't mess with the saturation, mess with the contrast. Turn it way down on the areas surrounding the inviting light, take away details from the background. The background should be amorphous and chaotic. As a general rule of thumb, most illustration should contain the brightest white and the darkest black at some point in the image.

Intricate details in the surrounding building are only revealed if the heavely light is cast upon upon them. Create a layer in which the light creeps up cracks and crags in the brickwork, glints on pebbles and stones, and don't forget the light it casts right below on the ground, revealing details in the gravel, casting long shadows from tiny stones.

The key to realistic lighting is to depict what they eye sees, not what is actually there. On the retina, light seems to spread like a fine mist into the surrounding dark. The sky seems several shades brighter right around the moon, but we all know physically this isn't true. Your lens does that to you. Light bleeds from rod to cone and infects the areas that aren't detecting any. When depicting the windows, there should be a bright, mist like ambience around the perimeter of the structer that brightens and lowers the contrast of the surrounding image. It should get progressively lighter, I suggest starting with 10% opacity on a large fading brush, and just keep applying it unti the inside is reall thick with this light "mist" and slowly fans out to the darkness.

To get an idea of how this effect is properly executed, do a quick google image search on Thomas Kinkade (sp?) he's the self-proclaimed "painter of light" and he does great work on warm, inviting windows.

-MASTER

"SJC" wrote in message

Hi Everyone!

I need to create an effect, starting from a picture of a street with a shop front with windows and open door. I'm trying to have a surreal kind of 'glow' eminating from the windows and door to try to make it look like the outside is cold and the inside is warm, homely and inviting etc. But, having tried a few different methods and effects, I'm yet to come up with something that really makes me think "yeah, that's it!". I've gotten a few that look OK but I'm really interested to hear how other folks would go about getting this 'warm glow' effect from the shop. I've tried
desaturating the rest of the pic and slightly oversaturating and orange-tinting the areas of light visible inthe doors and windows of the building and that looks OK, but it's just not it!

So, what would you do?

Thanks!

SJC

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create a glow from building windows and door?