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I took a very simple approach: 


1.  Control-clicked on your layer mask to turn it into a selection.


2.  Select / modify / contract that selection by 8 pixels.


3.  Invert the selection.


4.  With the layer mask selected, flood fill the new selection with black.  This is just a quick way to enlarge the area hidden by the mask.


5.  With the new layer mask still selected, right click on it and select, "Apply Layer Mask".  This gives the client the subject on a transparent background so they can put whatever background they want under it.



The above method is a bit ham-handed for my taste in that if the edges involved were more complicated (eg, fine individual strands of hair), it would erode them and make the selection look very crude, but for the simple edges in this example, it quickly gets the job done.   At 8 pixels of contraction, there is still a tiny bit of lightening near the edge.  If you want absolutely no lightening near the edge, increase this to 9 or 10 px.


The real question is what causes the lightened edge.  My guess is that the photographer blew out the background more than necessary, probably around 2 or 3 stops over, and a tiny bit of lens flare present caused the spill-over into the darker areas of the image.  If this were me and I had a say in the photography, I would ask that future images be shot with the background not actually overexposed -- just bright, ie, say 250,250,250.


[ATTACH]34046[/ATTACH]  [ATTACH]34047[/ATTACH]  [ATTACH]34048[/ATTACH]


HTH,


Tom


PS - Note: I put some keylines around my cropped images so that the white and black areas of the image could easily be distinguished from the white background used in forum posts.


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