Ok, I believe this is close to the technique that Dave Hill and Jill Greenberg use on their photos with PhotoShop. The tutorial takes a few minutes to complete. You must start with a photo that has wrap around lighting and obvious highlights.
In this tutorial we will apply the same effect as dodging and burning but with more control and options and in my opinion better effects on the highlights.This works for isolating a subject, bring out more detail in certain zones, apply slight vignettes, etc …
Open your photo and add a new layer ( don’t duplicate your background layer, add an empty new layer )
Now put this new empty layer in the SOFT LIGHT blending mode
Next we’re going to fill the layer with a 50 percent gray, go to EDIT –> FILL and choose ‘50 % gray‘
In this tutorial we’re going to recover detail from the skin area and have it on a separate layer for full control :
