This effect was generated in Filter Forge, a Photoshop plugin that allows you to create your own filters.
This filter takes the light areas of your photo and allows you to adjust the intensity of them The same goes for the dark areas as well.
By blurring the source you can also use this as a soft light or hard light filter or a bloom filter as well
By adding a stages selection you can control the intensity and fine details of this filter far more
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Word of caution Be careful with your use of the blur control. Several things can leed to a very long render time.
1. 3 stages adds a longer render time
2. More then one blur
3. intense blurs
light dark bloom blur photo adjust
This filter has earned its author one of our rewards. They are given to the authors of popular filters and include a free copy of Filter Forge.