After upgrading to a 64 bit environment along with CS5, I found myself needing to test out new ways to get a stream going for the inevitable fan films GBNH will be producing. Here was my first test:
Looks great mate. Nice and simple looking.
Wow! That looks great!
Looks great Foom!
The only things I would change, and this may be a personal preference because everyone does their streams differently, is the luminosity of the stream itself (the ion discharges look perfect what i mean is the core proton stream), the emission point from the wand itself and the contact point on the painting.
On the emission point on the wand tip:
In the films, when the proton stream came out of the wand, it gave off a brilliant actinic flash, like a lens flare and in some scenes and in the Video Game you can see tiny little particles, like sparks, dropping from the wand tip as the beam fires (it almost looks like molten metal but I would bet it is some type of plasmic discharge as it didn’t seem strong enough to last long enough to fall to the floor and burn the carpet, at least that we could see). I can see the flare there but it was much stronger in the films and video game, almost blinding to look at. Then again, it could simply be the angle at which they are being fired which wouldn’t cause such a blinding flare too.
Interestingly, I do see this type of plasmic emission on the "buster’s wand tips (very nice touch indeed, i can never get that exactly right) but it is hard to see at first. Perhaps slightly increasing the luminosity of those little particle drips (for lack of better term…wonder what Egon calls those)?
On the core proton stream, looking at the photos and stills, the proton stream core is a deep yellow with a red-orange aura (could easily be done with a deep yellow proton stream core and a little Guassian blur and color adjustment) and white energy particles (or blobs if you will) coursing through it at regular intervals (usually no more than one or two in a given still).
These blobs are usually moving too fast for the eye to see easily. You can see them in both films and the Video game if you look hard enough or pause it at the right moment. I can see that there are some of these, er, blobs, in the beams you’ve made but they are very hard to see as their white doesn’t stand out much from the core stream. In the films and game, while they are hard to see clearly (due to their speed), their white is very seperate from the yellow. You can that they are the cause for the beam’s undualations if you watch from the POV of the wand-firer in the Game…every time the stream pulses really hard, you can see the white blobs moving forward usually in a burst of the blue lightning ion discharge.
Maybe a simple adjustment of color balance might be needed but I do like the oval shape you’ve got them in. That’s perfect because it gives them the illusion of rapid movement within the stream, which is a challenging shape to begin with.
You can see the blobs and the brighter wand tip flares here:
The only other thing you may want to tweak (and again all these are personal preferences) are the contact points of the streams to Vigo. In all Ghostbusters media, even the cartoons, when the proton stream made contact with the ghost, it sparked and hissed and bucked, throwing off huge amounts of discharge, and if the capture stream were active, encaging the spud in a writing energy cage.
As Viggy obviously isn’t walking around in non-corporeal form, he wouldn’t be snared in the energy cage. However what would look really cool and I am not quite sure HOW to do this, is to have the end of the beams taper down as if they are entering the painting with ripples in the painting itself at the contact points with a little bit of a sparking flare. Maybe make Vigo’s eyes glow that creepy red they did in the movie.
Right now the streams look like they are tickling him (and we all know how ■■■■■ Vigo is…you know…girls…guys…animals). Don’t want to give him any more…er…ideas. 
Again, these may just be personal tweaks on the proton stream and not everyone likes their streams like that. I try to make my proton streams look like energetic energy ropes, which is what they are more or less, that are in constant motion, but its tricky to do. I also give some of my proton streams full white cores just to toss things up a bit, so by all means, feel free to ignore this as it may not be the direction you wanted to go in.
I do think you have a great set up here and I like the photograph and the positions of the Busters. Looks very energetic and “alive”. I look forward to seeing what you do with it. Rock on!
Definitely far better than some of the stuff I’ve seen. Very impressive!
Thanks for the comments everyone.
Anthony- thanks for the crit. I’m going to retool this some more and hopefully incorporate some better wand emissions, maybe those white blobs you mentioned, and some form of impact “sparks.”
My goal is to make a present I can use for anything GBNH makes. I had a great one going that I made with Shades’s help a few months back, but CS5 can’t handle a plugin I was using.
Anytime Foom! It’s going to look smoking!
hey foom, do you have the original that I could play around with?
The original After Effects file or the original photo? I either case- yes 
Here’s round two: complete with a wand “flare,” impact noise, and some better composition. The emission of the streams (right where it meets the wan) looks a bit wonky due to the fact I’m aiming the streams at locations different than where the guns were aimed.
the original photo
Wow! Awesome! Love the sparks! Makes it look much more dynamic and powerful!
PS
I love the ecto cooler. 
here’s my version 
I’ve got to figure out those white glob things.
I’m not sure if the flare at the stream’s core should be white or gold either. The movies were gold, but most people tend to go white. I’m indecisive!
If its Real Ghostbusters, I use a pure yellow beam with blue ion discharges and flares, no blobs.
If its movie, i include the blobs and use a yellow orange core with a guassian blur to give it the gold aura it had. I flip flop from white to yellow-orange cores if its movie based art…sometimes, I mix and match. I’ve never done anything with XGB yet…i want to tackle my own challenges first lol…do what you like! I’m sure it will turn out great!