A Nifty Little Trick

Want a very fast way to add a bit of snap to your images? Try this: Duplicate your background layer twice. Select the top layer and press 'option+command+tilde' (the squiggle under the escape key). This selects the highlights in the image. Once you have the highlights selected press command+j to put it to a new layer. Change that new layer's blending mode to 'softlight' and POP! Nice, eh? Now, if this warmed up your image too much you can merge that layer down to the second background copy and then change that merged layer's blending mode to 'luminosity' then you can merge that layer down onto your first copied background layer. This is why you duplicate the background twice...to do the luminosity thing if your image gets too warm. This way you get the pop of the effect without the color change. I find that the color boost can help an image in many instances. You can also duplicate that highlight layer a couple times and play with opacities if need be. I use this method all the time to add a bit of snap--quickly. Give it a try and feel free to ask me any questions if you can't figure it out. Oh, sorry PC users, I am not sure what your version of the short cut keys are. I think 'command' is 'ctrl' and 'option' is 'alt'.