I used a combination of the '50% grey trick' and some saturation using the sponge tool (which I don't like to use because it's destructive, but sometimes you gotta do what you gotta do) and I got what I needed.
However, I would still like to know why the 7 spotlights carried over to a jpg copy of a flattened tiff. I guess that will just remain one of PS's great mysteries.
I expect to post my image on Flickr tomorrow (it's almost finished) and once I do, I'll post a link to it here in case you want to check back and see what it looks like. Thanks again!
