Step 5: Fill The Selection With Black

If we look over in our Layers palette, we can see that we now have two layers. The Background layer, which is the layer that contains our photo, is on the bottom, and our Curves adjustment layer, which we used to darken the image, is sitting above it. One of the great things about Photoshop's adjustment layers is that each one comes with its own built in layer mask, and if we look closely, we can see a white highlight border around the layer mask's thumbnail:

This highlight border is telling us that we currently have the layer mask selected, and we're going to use the mask to hide the effects of the Curves adjustment layer inside the area we just selected. To do that, we need to fill our selection with black. Go up to the Edit menu at the top of the screen and choose Fill to bring up Photoshop's Fill dialog box. When the dialog box appears, select Black from the drop-down box to the right of the word "Use":

Click OK to exit out of the dialog box, and Photoshop fills our selection with black. We can see if we look again at our layer mask thumbnail in the Layers palette that it's now showing an area of black. This is the area that was inside our selection:

And if we look at our image in the document window, we can see that the darkening effect of the Curves adjustment layer has been hidden inside our selection, revealing the original photo underneath:

Press Ctrl+D (Win) / Command+D (Mac) to remove the selection outline from the image.

Step 6: Apply The Gaussian Blur Filter

To make the effect look more like light shining on the woman, we need to soften the edges of our selected area, which means we need to blur them, and for that, we can use Photoshop's Gaussian Blur filter. Go up to the Filter menu at the top of the screen, choose Blur, and then choose Gaussian Blur. When the dialog box appears, drag the slider at the bottom towards the right to increase the Radius value. The higher the Radius value, the more blurring is applied to the image. Keep an eye on your photo in the document window as you drag the slider to judge how much blurring you need to create a realistic looking, smooth transition between the light and dark areas. I'm going to set my Radius value to around 40 pixels. You may want to set yours higher or lower depending on your image. The best way to work is not to memorize numbers but to judge for yourself what value works best with your image:

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

Step 7: Lower The Opacity Of The Curves Adjustment Layer (Optional)

If you find that the darkening effect of the Curves adjustment layer is too strong and making the rest of the photo around the highlighted area too dark, simply lower the opacity of the adjustment layer to fine-tune the effect. The Opacity option is in the top right corner of the Layers palette. I'm going to lower my opacity down to around 60%:

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

And here, after lowering the opacity of my adjustment layer to give me a much more subtle lighting effect, is my final result:

And there we have it!

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