Hard Light and Composite Effects in Photoshop

How to get a high contrast hard light effect in Photoshop, almost HDR looking. I wanted to keep things realistic so I used the contrast masking technique to keep the original shadows of the model.

This tutorial can be followed in Adobe Elements as well.

Model stock image by Marcus Ranum: http://mjranum-stock.deviantart.com/
Background image by Julia Starr: http://night-fate-stock.deviantart.com/
Sky stock image by Pelleron Stock: http://pelleron-stock.deviantart.com/