How give your photo a bit of a glow
First, open up your photo. For this tutorial, I will be using this picture of Tim Armstrong.
Next, you need to duplicate the background picture. To do this, simply press Ctrl-J, and the background will automatically duplicate itself. Set that layer to "screen" to make it brighter. If your photo is too bright, change the opacity.
Next, merge down that layer by right-clicking layer 1, and selecting "Merge Down."
Now, you need to duplicate your background again, so press Ctrl-J. After you've done that, go to Filter>Blur>Gaussian Blur, set the blur to 4.5 and press OK.
Finally, set layer 1 to "soft light."
And presto! All done! Here's the final product:
