James,
actually, I have a snoot but for this shot, used to illustrate a brochure created for a 10-year-old's school project, Linda vignetted the image and added copy so I needed the entire dog to be lighted.

Frankly, I've found I can produce most of the lighting effects created with light shapers in PhotoShop. And I can preview them before I commit to the final image. The fact that I've been working in PhotoShop for over 10 years helps as does the fact that my wife, Linda, is an expert in PS, Illustrator and Quark.

But there's no doubt that the "spotlight" effect is very nice when you need it.

Thanks for the comment,

Jim