Originally posted by Darth Subjekt
I imagine. I tried lightsabers with photoshop and lets just say I'm still learning. 馃槵
It takes time to get right. I was never always 100% happy with the effects I achieved but I guess they were good, not as good as the movies though, but close.
People can do amazing lightsaber effects using Adobe After Effects, I have never tried this. It looks way too technical and complex and would take time to get right. But the ends results are beautiful.
I just basically traced the green plastic in the raw footage (the lightsaber blade) with a large glow of the desired color. It was frame by frame, just like how they did it in the OT, except with no computers. Then I layered pure white blade base over the glow creating a nice lightsaber effect. It was frame by frame, true rotoscoping.
If you feel you can't get the effects right with Photoshop, Download a 30-day free demo of Corel Painter 9 (I believe 9 is the best version) and I can make a quick video on how to make the lightsaber effects.
If you want to use Painter after the 30 days and don't want to spend the 200-400 on buying the full version send me a PM. Hehehe.
I wish my youtube account wasn't deleted by youtube (I was naughty and had several copyright claims on my videos) Because I had good examples of some saber rotoscoping I have done.