Creating a spotlight effect

In this photo, I overlaid the dark one and then cut out a circle with a feathered edge of 100 on the original 3200 pixel wide photo. On a 1600 pixel wide yo would use half the feathering. As you can see, it creates a whole new ambiance. One could even crop it to produce a portrait instead of landscape aspect ratio. The spot effect hides the more unladylike pose :)