I highly recommend the freeware program found here.

It allows you to easily break down a clip into it’s frames and rotoscope lightsaber effects into it (the other alternative being something like Adobe aftereffects, which although better is exceedingly expensive).

Example. An 11 second clip of me swinging a sword with saber effects. 345 frames, only took about an hour and a half or so. Excuse the low resolution, but it was done on a cheap webcam for lack of better video equipment.

I'll also recommend http://hackaday.com, which pointed me toward this and has inspired a few small projects.

http://lsmaker.uw.hu/video/aranyember_l.mpg

ahahahahah

That was one of the worst BEST movies I've seen in a long time.

Bwaa ha ha ha ha ha he slapped him!

I was trying to figure out why that looked so fake, and then I realized they didn't do any of the motion blurs like they're supposed to.

Anyone know if, before I try, this will read motion JPG AVIs?

Also, can you make the blade "core" a pale color of the glow, so they look more like the OT? White is just... bleh.

Would usually take me that long with photoshop + premiere anyway.

Meh. I don't like it.

I'm using it now. My video should be finished within two more hours. (947 frames.. two double bladed lightsabers... ugghhh)

I would do that all frame by frame in Photoshop and it would come out looking great in 30 minutes or less.

The problem is that I don't believe in piracy and I don't have thousands to throw around, so this is my alternative. I can't rely on the GIMP for everything.

You don't need to resort to piracy or spend thousands, buy an old version on eBay and get the upgrade somewhat cheap. It's not free, but it's cheaper.