Adding Sunlight Through The Trees With Photoshop

Step 9: Add An "Outer Glow" Layer Style

To make our sunbeams stand out a bit more, let's add a glow to them. Click on the Layer Styles icon at the bottom of the Layers palette (the icon that looks like the letter "f"):

Then choose Outer Glow from the list of layer styles that appears:

This brings up Photoshop's Layer Style dialog box set to the Outer Glow options in the middle column. No need to change any of the settings here. The defaults work fine for our sunbeams, so simply click OK to exit out of the dialog box and apply the Outer Glow effect:

The sunbeams now stand out much better with the Outer Glow applied to them:

Step 10: Change The Layer Blend Mode To "Soft Light"

The sunbeams are a little too intense now though, so let's make them look a bit more realistic, and we can do that simply by changing the blend mode of the layer they're on. With "Layer 2" still selected, go up to the blend mode options in the top left corner of the Layers palette. By default, the blend mode is set to "Normal". Click on the down-pointing arrow to the right of the word "Normal" and select the Soft Light blend mode from the list:

Here's my image after changing the blend mode to "Soft Light":

Step 11: Duplicate "Layer 2"

With "Layer 2" still selected, press Ctrl+J (Win) / Command+J (Mac) to duplicate it. Photoshop copies the layer, adds it above "Layer 2" in the Layers palette, and names it "Layer 2 copy":