If you change only the brightness ("Luminosity") of the color, there will be no hue shifts in your scene. Just use the HLS color editor controls, rather than the RGB ones and change only the "L(uminosity)".

But the range of adjustment is not great that way. Here are a couple of other ideas:

1. Use a gray gell (e.g. applied to a plane) in front of the sun as a "neutral density filter". 2) Use one of the "Post Processing" controls you get by selecting the camera, right-clicking on it and choosing "Edit Object". There, you can adjust overall scene color, add a color bias, change gamma, etc.

"What strategies do people use with Vue to get good sunlight on foreground objects without excessive brightness?"

I haven't had problems with this. I use the "Light Intensity" control, in the Atmosphere Editor lighting tab, which (as you noted) can be applied to only the sun.

Since i can adjust the "Ambient Vs Sun" setting, the colors and gain of the sky and ambient and use the "Quality Boost" (at least for GA and GI lighting). I usually use 60% to 70% sunlight for the "Sun Vs Ambient" slider.

When you're not using Global Radiosity, indirect light reflections are faked by adding in a certain amount of ambient light to the whole scene. Perhaps this is what's giving you too much ambient? You could try turning down that "Artificial Ambience"?

_ jc...'Art Head Start' e-book
.......'Art Head Start.com site Digital Art skills. Free lighting chapter, tutes, Vue models, tex pix.