What is Knoll Light Factory Photo?

Knoll Light Factory Photo 3.0 adds flare and sparkle to any photograph or Photoshop image. Created by Photoshop co-creator John Knoll, the plug-in was originally created for video applications to generate Photon torpedoes in the Star Trek movies. The Photoshop version gives photographers and digital artists a unique tool for their commercial and design work.

KLF Photo creates photo-realistic or enhanced lighting effects. You can easily construct naturalistic lens flares by combining any of the 19 different elements that occur when photographing lights and bright objects. Other features allow you to create lens flares, model man-made lights, or add glows to existing objects. The lights can be as realistic or fantastical as your imagination.

KLF Photo is comprised of a number of different effects that you can create depending upon the desired result and the time you want to put into design. The plugin contains controls for applying the pre-made flares that ship and tons of controls that lets you create and edit your own custom effects.

Left to right, a bottle before and after a KLF Photo flare was added.

Where to Access KLF Photo

Accessing the Knoll Light Factory Photo plug-in is very simple. Just go to your Photoshop> Filters menu and scroll down to the Red Giant submenu. Click on the Knoll Light Factory Photo item and the plug-in interface will open.

Choose the plug-in from the Photoshop> Filter menu on Mac and Windows.

Overview of Lighting Effects

KLF Photo provides the tools to design extremely realistic lens flares. In film and TV, flares are frequently used to create a special effect. Directors may test a variety of lenses to find one with a particular look to suit their style or provide a particular effect for a single shot. It is a misconception that lens flares are ‘mistakes’. Lens flares are the result of photographing bright lights either on film or video.

Camera lenses are complex devices. Most lenses contain many separate glass elements in order to form a sharp, clear image. While the function of a lens is to bend light onto the exposure surface, all the elements inside a lens reflect a small percentage of the light that strikes them. Anti-reflective coatings on the lens elements minimize these reflections so that ghost images do not appear in the picture. The anti-reflective coatings reduce the brightness of the reflections to the point that they are too dim to photograph. When a very bright light like the sun or a stadium light is photographed, the reflections themselves are bright enough to show up.

Left to right, a landscape before and after a KLF Photo flare was added.