Hey everyone, I have been seeing lots of lightsaber fight videos on the Net, and I decided to make my own effects. Here's how I did it on Adobe Illustrator, for those of you that have odd programs that no one else has. (Note: I may update this later if I can improve it.

1. First of all, you need to get your photo on Illustrator. This works whether you took the photo or found it on the Net. Open up iPhoto, your web browser, or wherever your photo is stored and Illustrator. On the Illustrator window, select "New Document." A small window will pop up, and at the bottom, select RGB on the color scale. Click and drag your photo onto the canvas and move it into the center.
2. Now, use the Line tool to draw a line and adjust the thickness so that it completely covers the blade. Go up to Effects on the toolbar, go to Blur and select Gaussian Blur. In the space labeled Radius, type in the thickness of your line. Press OK. It will take you back to the canvas, and you will notice that the blade is still showing through. Using the Selection tool, select the blurred line that you just made and press Ctrl-C (or command-C, if you use a Mac) and then Ctrl- or command-V to paste another copy on.
3. Repeat step 2, but with radii of 2 and 3 times the width of your blade.
4. Now, you add the saber's color. Select the top blurred line, go to Filter, then Colors, and press Adjust Colors. A window with three sliders should come up. Choose the color that you want your saber to be, then take that color up to 100%. Now for the tricky part. (It took me a couple of tries to get this right.) It's not really tricky, but it took a couple of tries to remember to do it. Take the sliders for the other two colors and bring them down to -100%. Click OK. If you don't want your saber to be so rich in color, then you can experiment with the color bars.
5. A lightsaber's blade isn't actually the color of the lightsaber, it's white and the aura around the blade makes it look like it's colored. To add this, draw a line down the middle of the blade with a thickness of about 1/3 the thickness of your original line. It will still be red, so you need to go to Stroke and change the swatch to white. Then, go up back to Effects and select Gaussian Blur again. Make it have a radius of less than 5. Press OK and save your picture.
6. Email them to your friends and put them on the Internet for everyone to see!