Photoshop Diagonal Light Effect Tutorial

I've wanted to share this lovely tutorial with you for a long time. Though I can not claim it as my own (I found it years ago online), it's definitely one of my favorites. It makes any photo look very soft and angelic. Plus, you can customize it to your liking to make it more or less dramatic. Shall we begin?

STEP 1
Open your image of choice in Photoshop and duplicate the layer.
You can do this by going to: Layer > Duplicate Layer.

STEP 2
Next, you'll want to apply a Soft Gaussian Blur.
Go to: Filter > Blur > Gaussian Blur. Set the radius to 3.0.

STEP 3
Now we need to add a Diagonal Motion Blur.
Go to: Filter > Blur > Motion Blur.

Make the following adjustments:
Angle: 45
Distance: 97 pixels

STEP 4
We're more than half way done! Now we need to take remove some of the blurryness.
Go to: Filter > Sharpen > Unsharp Mask.

Adjust the levels to:
Amount: 164%
Radius: 126.6 pixels
Threshold: 0 levels

STEP 5
Set the blurred layer to "Screen" and set the Fill to 50%.

STEP 6
You can use the Eraser tool on a low opacity to gently get rid of some of the diagonal light effect on features that you might want to be more prominent. In this case, I used the Eraser tool on my eye area, nose and lips. Once you're satisfied, merge the two layers to one.

Go to: Layer > Merge Visible.

And you're done! You can play around with it until you're happy with the results. The higher the Fill is set in Step 5 the more the diagonal light will show.
I hope you enjoyed this tutorial! Let me know if you try it yourself!