You can probably achieve something close to what you want with a parent-child mask overlay, using a white mask on transparent PSD or other file as the shape of the beam you want and running a "beam" animation in the child track. Turn the opacity of the beam down and you should have it.

Try the Bump Map fX in Vegas. Start with these values:

Light Type: Spotlight
Intensity: 0.2
Focus: 0.13
Ambiance: 0.30
Shininess: 0.50
Bump height: 0.00
Bump Channel: Green
White is high: checked
Z: 2.00

The other values are set by the source (yellow circle) and focal point (the cross), which you drag around. Play around with the ambiance, focus, intensity and Z control (it's the vertical slider to the right of the control area in the Bump Map dialog). Also, of course, move the source and destination for your spotlight around until you get the object highlighted that you want.

Whatever effects you create can be keyframed, of course, so you can have the spotlight appear and disappear, move around the frame, etc.

You can also add lens flare to create the appearance of specular reflections.

You can add a duplicate, second instance of the same fX if you want more than one item highlighted, or you want to have a second light source (like two follow spots for an ice skater).

I like using the "Light Ray "located in your effects selection. Remember to adjust the blend to make the text more readable.
Also, keyframe the position of the effect horizontaly (Side to Side). Gives a cool effect.

Nice method/approach, John, I just tried this on a piece of newspaper, and it worked very well, faster than the technique I recommended.

Another tip in using the Bump Map's spotlights is to "lift" dark areas during a colour correction session. This is taking that which we use in a graphics package, and applying the same approach in Vegas.

Grazie

Grazie,

Please elaborate.

Wow! Thanks for all the helpful suggestions! I tried John Meyer's suggestion, and it looks great!!!

Once again, my graditude to ALL of you good folks for all your helpful suggestions!

Rick <><

For unto us a Child is born, unto us a Son is given.... Isaiah 9:6

BK? - you mean illuminate - surely?

Well, have you ever had an area that was needing some "post" lighting?

What I've done is use the Bump map "spots" to light those areas. When I use Colour Correction, and alter gain, Gamma etc this happens to "all" the frame. Using the Bump spots I can apply some gentle lighting to a specific dark area. I've also done the inverse. Having a background that was going towards being blown, I've darkened/reduced the overall picture using "Offset" - then I get busy with the colour corrector. Yes, you can achieve something similar with Masks, but I find this a wee bit more intuitive and it's kinda "spotlighty" too .. yeah?

Grazie