Photoshop Lighting Effects: Cast Light From A Window

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Step 15: Load A Selection Once Again Around The Window Light

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We're going to finish off the effect by making the light shining from the window a little more intense. Again, this is an optional step, but it's very simple.

Hold down your Ctrl (Win) / Command (Mac) key and click once again on the layer mask thumbnail for the Levels adjustment layer in the Layers palette:

Adobe Photoshop tutorial Photoshop effects image.

Photoshop Lighting Effects: Hold down "Ctrl" (Win) / "Command" (Mac) and click on the layer mask thumbnail in the Layers palette.

This will again load a selection inside the image, with everything except for the window light selected:

Photoshop Lighting Effects: The selection loaded in the image. Everything except the window light is currently selected.

Step 16: Invert The Selection

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Press Shift+Ctrl+I (Win) / Shift+Command+I (Mac) to invert the selection so that only the window light is selected:

Photoshop Lighting Effects: Invert the selection so only the window light is selected. The rest of the image becomes deselected.

Step 17: Add A Second Levels Adjustment Layer

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Click once again on the New Adjustment Layer icon at the bottom of the Layers palette and choose Levels to add a second Levels adjustment layer:

Photoshop Lighting Effects: Add a second Levels adjustment layer.

When the Levels dialog box appears, simply click OK in the top right corner to exit out of the dialog box. We don't need to make any changes to it. If we look now in the Layers palette, we can see our second Levels adjustment layer above the original one:

Photoshop Lighting Effects: Photoshop's Layers palette showing the second Levels adjustment layer at the top, above the original.

Step 18: Change The Blend Mode Of The Adjustment Layer To "Screen"

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To increase the intensity of the light shining from the window, all we need to do is go up to the layer blend mode option in the top left corner of the Layers palette and change its blend mode. By default, layers are set to the "Normal" blend mode. Click on the down-pointing arrow to the right of the word "Normal" and select Screen from the list:

Photoshop Lighting Effects: Change the blend mode of the second Levels adjustment layer from "Normal" to "Screen".

As soon as you change the blend mode to Screen, you'll see the intensity of the light increase dramatically in the image:

Photoshop Lighting Effects: The light appears much more intense after changing the blend mode to "Screen".

Step 19: Adjust The Light Intensity By Lowering The Opacity Of The Adjustment Layer

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If you find, as I do, that the light now appears too intense, you can reduce the intensity simply by going up to the Opacity option in the top right corner of the Layers palette (directly across from the blend mode option) and lowering the opacity value until you're happy with the result. I'm going to lower mine to about 70%:

Photoshop Lighting Effects: Reduce and fine-tune the intensity of the light by lowering the opacity of the Levels adjustment layer.

And with that, you're done! Here once again is my original image for comparison:

Photoshop Lighting Effects: The original image once again.

And here, after reducing the intensity of the light by lowering the opacity of the adjustment layer, is my final "Cast Light From A Window" effect:

Photoshop Lighting Effects: The final result.

And there we have it!

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