Back light

By far, the effect of a back light (actually a hair light) is best achieved in the original photography. If the images cannot be reshot, consider this alternative: (Click on the image to see it in a larger size.)

Fig 2: The effect of Select & Mask

Fig 3: The Select & Mask with Background Copy visible  and its image darkened (the amount of darkening is up to you)..

Fig 4. Its sharp mask

Fig 5. The mask duplicated, placed on the top layer and blurred sightly. To blur, the mask is first inverted, then blurred, then inverted again to return it to normal.

i can't actually show what im working without proper credits (its a collaboration picture made by multiple artists) but here is a rough blurred version (for copyright reasons)

basically those are a bunch of different layers of different characters. i want to achieve that

to them

basically like the roster shown in front of the smash ultimate logo

Could you please post an example of what you want to achieve and some (loses versions of) images you wand to edit thusly?