CS5 is so much nicer with Lens Flares…

While it may seem that Optical Flares has pretty much stolen the crown of lens flare simulation plug-ins (really can’t go anywhere these days without seeing those J.J. Abrams style flares from Fringe and Star Trek; on the bright side: the more it’s used, the quicker it wears off and we will one day see better intros without excessive flares again), it never hurts to have options. One has always been Knoll Light Factory and it now continues to be also for Adobe‘s CS5 products, meaning that at long last a 64bit version is available. Of course it still has the uglier editor, but on the other hand just as well renders a few elements much nicer than the competing product. if you can afford both, this makes the ultimate duo. If you can’t, either one can still be beefed up with elements from my After Effects projects download pages. As a useful side effect, there’s also now a 64bit version of Unmult. In other related news, Color Finesse, whose LE version is also included with your After Effects, has received a minor update to version 3.0.2 that fixes a few issues that didn’t make it in time for the initial release.