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Now, the displacement effect isn't always perfect, but it is quite flexible, since you have the option of selecting from various blend modes, playing with the range of the light, changing the opacity and intensity, etc. If you can't get a perfect cast light from this plugin on the first try, you can at least get a pretty decent start on one that will almost invariably save time and effort.
I should also note that Light! is not limited to cast light either. You can load up any grayscale image as a shape object, including any of the 62 that ship with the program. These include plants, bubbles, snow and, as you see below, rain. [an error occurred while processing this directive]
Disappointments
DFT Light is a solid plugin with just a few superficial flaws. On the interface side, I'd like a larger preview window with the ability to drag objects directly rather than having to adjust X,Y values via slider. And I'd also like to see the preview display more accurate information about the output. It seems to come and go in terms of accuracy. In terms of Mac OS X specifically, the plugin will not allow you to load the .png pattern files that ship with the software, so you have to convert them to grayscale JPEG images before using them. I'm not sure why the company doesn't just do this for you ahead of time. And I'd also like to see more objects ship with the package, although, admittedly, these are easy enough to create in Photoshop.
On the "missed opportunity" front, I think this program could have broader application if some more fantastical lighting effects could be produced--light bursts, explosions, atmospheric phenomena, etc.--a la Future Fantastic's Genesis V2 Pro. On the more practical side, it would be interesting to see whether the plugin's displacement functionality combined with matte extraction could be used to generate shadows as well as lights. It would also be nice to see distortion of scale and blur to accentuate the effect of displacement.
The bottom line
The key to Light! is that all of the steps of creating lighting effects are brought together in a single, interactive interface. Photoshop's built-in capabilities are fairly cumbersome for creating these kinds of effects, where, especially with displacement, too much depends on trial and error. Light! offers it all in one plugin that speeds the creation of these effects almost immeasurably. You're going to make up the $75 list price of Light! in time savings alone. I give Light a Buy recommendation.
Digital Film Tools Light! is available now for Mac OS X, Mac OS 9 and Windows for $75. A free download with all of the shape objects is also available from the company's Web site. For more information, visit http://www.digitalfilmtools.com.
Contact the author: Dave Nagel is the producer of Creative Mac and Digital Media Designer; host of several World Wide User Groups, including Synthetik Studio Artist, Adobe Photoshop, Adobe InDesign, Adobe LiveMotion, Creative Mac and Digital Media Designer; and executive producer of the Digital Media Net family of publications. You can reach him at dnagel@digitalmedianet.com.
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