I want the character to stand out a little more without sinking into the background, so I’m going to add some lighting around her.

 

First I make an image with only the character shown, and hide all other layers and the paper layer. Using the [File] menu > [Export (Single Layer)] > [.png (PNG)] option, I save the image as a PNG.

 

I open the png file and fill it with white using [Lock Transparent Pixel].

 

With the [Layer Property] palette > [Border effect], I add a border in my chosen color. I can change the color later, so for now I just use a color that’s easy to see.

 

If I blur it at this stage, only the white part will be blurred, not the border effect. To blur them together, I make a new layer and merge it with this layer.

In this way, the border and the white part will be processed together as a single image.

 

I blur the image with the [Filter] menu > [Blur] > [Gaussian blur].

 

I’ve made my material for the lighting, so I copy this image and paste it back into my main file between the character and background.

I change the layer name to “character glow”.

 

I set the “character glow” layer to [Screen] and adjust the brightness a little.

 

This is how it looks so far.