08 The masked image
You can see the effect on the image – and on the layer mask in the Layers palette. The black circle in the centre masks the effect, but this fades to white at the edges, where the effect of the duplicated image layer is applied in full.
09 Adjusting the opacity
Finally, if the effect is still too strong, the solution is simple – you can reduce the opacity of the adjustment layer. Here, I’ve knocked it back to 65%, which gives a slightly less overpowering contrast increase.
10 The finished picture
I’m the first to admit that this image is heavily manipulated and the original subject didn’t really look like this, but I think the result is a powerful, graphic image that stands on its own two feet. I use this technique a lot with abstract close-ups to bring out strong textures and colours.
