Digitally highlighting part of a photo is a great way to focus on one area of a picture while keeping the background visible. This look can be achieved using a transparency or vellum paper, but using Photoshop to create the look is less messy and requires only one tool!

It is clear that this photo of my friend's son during a Memorial Day parade is filled with many other people that distract from her son. My friend wanted to see if I could come up with a unique approach that would highlight her son's participation. I chose this technique, which makes him the focus while still allowing the reader to see that he was riding in a yellow Corvette.

1) Open your photo. Got to Layer>New Fill Layer>Solid Color. Click OK to create a new layer entitled Color Fill 1. Select the color for your overlay (I used white) and click OK.

2) Go to the Layers palette and move the Opacity slider to about 50 percent. Make sure the color fill layer is selected.

3) Select the elliptical marquee tool in the toolbar at left; a cross will appear in place of your cursor on the screen. Hold down the shift key and draw a circle around your photo's focal point. Do not deselect the marquee (i.e. you should still see blinking dashes).

4) Go to Edit>Fill Selection. Under Contents, select Black and click OK. Make sure your marquee circle is still selected (the circle should be blinking). Then go to Layer>New>Layer> and hit OK. Set your foreground color as white by going to the boxes at the bottom right of the toolbar and double clicking on the top box. Select white as your color.

5) Go to Edit>Stroke (Outline) Selection. Type a wide width (such as 20 pixels) and click OK. Now you can deselect the circle. Flatten the layers (Layer>Flatten Image) to finish.

Here's another example of the technique in action: