In this article we’ll take a look at a totally cool – not to mention amazing, creative and fun – effect that is easy to create in Adobe® Photoshop® CS2!

In Adobe® Photoshop® CS2, you can actually change the direction and type of the lighting in a photograph with the Lighting Effects filter. You can transform a picture with flat lighting into a picture in which the subject looks as though he or she was photographed in a spotlight or anther type of light with a narrower beam. How cool is that?

I took this photograph of my friend Chandler deep within the Amazon Rain Forest. Only kidding! I snapped this picture at Jungle World, an exhibit at New York’s Bronx Zoo. I like the picture, but I knew more dramatic lighting possibilities awaited me in Photoshop.

Basically, I wanted to create the effect that Chandler was actually in the rainforest and illuminated by light streaming through an opening in the forest’s thick canopy.

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