Being in a deep freeze here in Michigan (actual zero degrees), looking for something to photograph. Used one of our holiday christmas decorations for this example. Someone on this forum turned me on to Russel Brown's lighting technique using a adjustment layer which I have modified for my use and thought it might be of interest to those here. While Russell used the oval marquee tool, I use the lasso tool. Here's how it goes:

1. With lasso tool, roughly select the center of interest.
2. Add layer>adjustment layer>hue/saturation
3. With the lightness slider darken the center to your taste (it can be adjusted later if need be).
4. On the hue/saturation layer, Filter>blur>guassian blur. Put the square on the edge of the selection and add a big blur (80 pixels as a example).
5. With hue/saturation layer active, go to edit>adjustments>invert.
Here is where the fun starts, you can readjust the lightness, you can move the hue slider to add color to the selection as well as saturation. Also, you can adjust the selection itself by going to edit>transform>scale to rescale the selection as well as being able to rotate the selection. In the following sample,In the bottom sample, I flattened the image and did a second selection and changed the second selection color with the hue slider, as well as lightened the selection. The top image was the original.
http://www.pbase.com/davidjaseck/image/38792293.jpg
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Dave
www.pbase.com/davidjaseck/photographs
www.pbase.com/davidjaseck/photorestorations
http://www.pbase.com/davidjaseck/image/37341852.jpg