Overview

The famous lens flare tool from Academy Away winner John Knoll.
Created by John Knoll, Photoshop co-creator and Star Wars effects guru, Knoll Light Factory is one of the industry's most popular motion graphics tools. It is most famous for its high-fidelity simulations of light effects called flares, which simulate reflections from a very bright light source as seen through a camera's lens. Knoll Light Factory is Hollywood's go-to tool for adding interest to text or logos or extra pop to FX explosions.
Knoll Light Factory Pro runs in a variety of host applications.
- Adobe After Effects CS4, CS3, 7, 6.5
- Adobe Premiere Pro CS4, CS3, 2.0
- Apple Final Cut Pro 6, 5.1.4
- Apple Motion 3.02
- Avid Xpress Pro/Media Composer 5.6+,2.6+
Custom Lens Editor
Build your own flares or edit a preset with the custom lens editor. Choose from elements such as StarFilter, Ellipse, or PhotonSpikeBall, and control each element's position, color, scale, thickness, angle, and width. You also get pinpoint control over brightness, scale and color of the lens as a whole.
70 powerful presets
Use the same presets that the pros turn to every day for sports events and major motion pictures. Presets include Desert Sun, Arc Welder, Generic Panavision, Spikey Glow, Pv1 (for exploding stars), RedLaser, RockConcert, Omnimax (a flare seen on IMAX projection), or Distant Quantum (the original photon torpedo).
Auto-obscuration tools
Flares can be obscured by objects (cars, enemy spacecraft) that come between them and the viewer. The auto-track feature tracks specific points in an existing alpha channel, making flare location a snap. The integrated Knoll Unmult tool generates alphas, making it easier to include lights and flares in complex composites.
System Recommendations
Apple Macintosh
- Mac OS X 10.4.11 and later
- 10.5.2 and later
- Power Mac G5, Mac Intel
- 1 GB of RAM
- 30 MB of Hard Drive space
PC / Windows
- Windows XP SP1 or later (32-bit)**
- Windows Vista (32-bit)**
- Pentium 4 2.4 GHz or faster (or AMD equivalent)
- 1 GB of RAM
- 30 MB of Hard Drive space
**Windows XP and Vista 64-bit systems are not supported at this time.