Hey i had a question about smoking out the headlights and was wondering if it affects how much light is put out at all

 

You are putting an extra coating over the headlights, even though it is designed to let light trough it is still diminished in comparison with an unsmoked unit.

Imho you are better off not doing any front/rear light tinting. In case of accidents, especially in darkness, people have grounds to put you at fault, even tough under normal circumstances they would have been. Like getting rearended, they cab claim they did not see your brakelights, and with some cars out there I have to agree with them.

 

The light output reduction is minor but does increase the more heavily you tint.

I applied a coating of VEIL to the headlights and fog lights as part of a passive laser protection scheme which also slightly tinted both. It's a very minor amount of tint but the change in the overall look was pretty drastic and really went well with my smoked front signal light assemblies. Go light to start, whatever method you decide to try.

 

Yes it will reduce it. How much, is depending on how you do it. Very light coats, hardly noticable. Multiple heavy coats, you will see a big difference.

Other options is also to use a plastic cover, which you can take on and off as you like but those are usually kinda cheesy looking and will drastically reduce light output.

Other option and usually one I go with myself, is a vinyl tint which can vary how much it reduces light depending on which line you go with, usually it's a 5 to 10% reduction. Stuff I use is www.lamin-x.com

 

i got headlight tint from RVinyl. I got the dark smoke tint which is supposed to let 67% light through. it definitely dimmed my headlights, but i have 35w 5000k HIDs from retrosolutions and they are still a good amount brighter than stock.