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The Output controls let you preview the image with different stages of the Lens Reflections effect applied.
— Select Output: Lets you choose to view the Isolated Source (to help when adjusting the Isolation controls), Reflections Alone (showing you the flaring effect that will be applied to the image
by itself), or the Final Composite (the complete effect).
— Alpha Masks Light Sources: Check this box to use the input Alpha channel to exclude sources in those areas from casting light rays.
— Alpha Limits Effect: Check this box to use the input Alpha channel for compositing purposes. Unchecking means the input Alpha is ignored.
— Quality: This pop-up lets you choose how to render the effect. Options are Full, Half (Faster),
and Quarter (Fast). The tradeoff is between sharpness and speed. The actual reflection process is the same across all quality levels. Smoother and lower resolution content will not benefit from the Full Quality setting.
Isolation Controls
The Isolation controls let you choose which highlights in the scene will generate lens reflections. The effect of these controls can be directly monitored by setting Select Output to Isolated Source.
It’s highly recommended to customize the Isolation controls for the image at hand when using this plugin, as even more so than other plugins, the particular highlights used will have a huge impact on the resulting effect.
— Color Mode: A pop-up menu that lets you either choose to keep the colors of the different highlight regions that generate lens reflections, or treat them all as grayscale brightness only (color controls later can change the effect). Grayscale is faster to process, but Color can result in some brilliant effects.
— Brightness: Sets the threshold at which highlights are isolated.
— Gamma: Lets you shape the isolated highlights.
— Smooth: Lets you blur details in the highlights that you don’t want to be pronounced.
— Color Filter: Lets you choose a particular color of highlight to isolate (an eyedropper lets you select a value from the Viewer).
— Morph Operation: A pop-up lets you adjust the resulting Isolation matte (options include Shrink, Grow, Opening, Closing), and a slider lets you define how much.
— Morph Amount: Adjusts the edges of the light source based on the Morph Operation chosen.
Global Controls
The Global controls let you quickly and easily adjust the overall quality of the Lens Reflections effect using a centralized group of parameters.
— Global Brightness: Lets you raise and lower the level of all reflections. Lowering brightness is a good way to make a large lens reflection effect more subtle, although images with small lens reflection effects may benefit from being a little brighter.
— Global Blur: Lets you defocus all reflections. This is another good way of making lens reflection effects of all kinds more subtle.