Adobe Photoshop Tutorial: Using A Photo To Mask Itself

Step 7: Invert The Layer Mask

If you click on Layer 1's thumbnail to select it, you'll see the image itself appear once again in the Document Window. The image is now being masked by a copy of itself, and it's being masked onto the white-filled layer below it, making it look something like this:

Not exactly what we want, so we're going to invert the layer mask, making light areas dark and dark areas light. To do that, first click back on the layer mask's thumbnail once again to select it. No need to hold down "Alt" or "Option" this time. Then with the layer mask selected, use the keyboard shortcut Ctrl+I (Win) / Command+I (Mac) to invert the mask. Your image in the Document Window should now look much better:

Step 8: Apply The Gaussian Blur Filter To The Layer Mask

The give our image a soft glow effect, all we need to do is blur the layer mask, and for that, we'll use the Gaussian Blur filter. With the layer mask still selected, go up to the Filter menu at the top of the screen, select Blur, and then select Gaussian Blur. This will bring up the Gaussian Blur filter's dialog box:

Drag the slider bar at the bottom of the dialog box left and right to increase or decrease the Radius value. The higher the Radius value, the more blur that's applied, which creates the glow effect. You can see a preview of the glow effect in the Document Window as you're dragging the slider. Drag the slider until you're happy with the effect. I'm using a low resolution image for this tutorial, so for me, a Radius value of about 6 pixels gives me a nice glow. If you're using a high resolution image, you'll probably want to use a value of 8 or higher. Click OK when you're done to exit out of the Gaussian Blur dialog box.

Here's my image after applying the Gaussian Blur filter:

Step 9: Merge "Layer 1" And The White-Filled Layer Below It

Press Ctrl+E (Win) / Command+E (Mac) to merge "Layer 1" with the white-filled layer below it, which combines both layers onto a single layer. You won't see anything different in the Document Window, but you'll see in the Layers palette that the two layers are now one:

Step 10: Duplicate The Merged Layer And Change Its Blend Mode To Multiply

The image is looking too light and washed out at the moment, so we're going to fix that. First, with the new merged layer selected in the Layers palette, press Ctrl+J (Win) / Command+J (Mac) to duplicate it:

Then go up to the Blend Mode options in the top left of the Layers palette, click the down-pointing arrow to the right of the word "Normal", and change the blend mode of the new layer to Multiply:

This will darken the image, giving it more contrast and bringing back some of the color that was washed out. If you find your image now looks a bit too dark, simply lower the Opacity of the layer in the top right of the Layers palette. I'm going to lower mine to about 75%:

Here's my image after changing the blend mode to Multiply and lowering the opacity: