Lawrence,
We need some better description of what you are trying to do. What kind of "scope"? Gunsight? Or? Do the lights have lenticular lenses that can be seen? Do you see any part of the front of the lights? Do you mean actually creating the light fixtures themselves? Or are you just creating the lightbeam?
For the moment, I’ll just assume the lightbeam, because that is the easiest. Generally, you just need to paint a semitransparent conical or cylindrical beam that may soften at the edges, and fade its intensity as the beam projects further from the light. The edges may be a bit more intense than the center of the beam. If you do this on a layer, you can experiment with the actual level of transparency that looks "right".
But the beam will cast some degree of illumination on any objects just outside the beam. That’s a different problem that you may or may not be able to solve realistically.
And if you have a visible lenticular lens at the front of the light (like automobile headlights, these are far easier to craft believably if you use actual photos. If there is no lens (like flashlights), your life is a lot easier — a bright white disk of light is fine.
Do you have a link to the image without the projected light beam?
Neil
Dittos to Neil.
Remember too that any light effect will only look natural against a background that’s darker than the light (either the spot source or the cast beam). People often try to draw a beam of light or a light starburst that shows up as a color against white paper, and go through h#ll trying to figure out why they can’t make it look right.
Lawrence? Lawrence? We’re in the dark here…
Neil
[OUCH!…just stubbed my toe…]
Take two pictures one with lights on one with lights off. combine the pics adding in the beams of light.
without more details this is the best discription I can give.
Thanks to everyone who replied to my’ turning lights on’ message. I got it done by using a combination of filters; render-lens flare & lighting effects. Each on a separate layer. I finished it up with Mythical Lighting.
Lawrence
Would like to see what you came up with, and chance of getting a link to the finished image?
