PS CS2 help: Lens flare with bigger "sun", less flare

Dear members,

As many of you know, there's the option of including a "sun" with lens flare into a picture in Photoshop CS2. ( Filter > Render > Lens Flare...)

While I really love to play around with this tool, the large flares annoy me a lot.

I usually need the large source of light ("sun"), but no or very little lens flare.
Sometimes I get to just clone away the flare afterwards, but with detailed backgrounds it's just not possible.

My question, is there any plug-in / way to get the large sunbeam with very little or no lens flare?

Thanks in advance to all of you!
F.

Duplicate the layer before applying the filter. Then mask the filtered layer.

Tricky and yet so obvious....thanks a lot, can't see why I didn't think of that.

Thanks a lot!