Rim lighting

Lon Sharp posted an image in the wildlife gallery in which he added rim lighting to the antlers of a mule deer which really made them pop. I did a search on bing and watched a few instructional videos to learn more. However, does anyone have a workflow that they would share on how I might create this effect on small items like antlers in a straight forward way.

Thanks for reading.

This is just a guess - but I think he worded it awkwardly which made it seem like he did it in Post Processing. I believe that it was done in camera - which is really the only way to do it effectively. You can sort of do it after the fact by playing with highlights and shadows but if the subject isn't backlit and the conditions aren't right, you can't make up for it in PP.

I'm with Luke, in that I think it's an effect he likes to apply by getting in the right position for the deer to be backlit.

However, I'll disagree slightly with "...you can't make up for it in PP." Given enough time and know how, anything can be made up in PP. A completely realistic rim lighting effect would not be too difficult, but might be tedious; I'm not an expert with PS, but I've seen completely fabricated images that couldn't be discerned from the real thing.

David - you're correct. I was speaking more in the terms of the effects of a polarizer. They can't be duplicated with simple post-processing and I think rim-lighting is the same. Yes, given enough time and "lee-way" you could probably do it. But really it's something to be done with the original exposure

Thanks for your replies.

Don, I apologize if I misled you in how I described the effect. Luke is correct in that it is a combination of lighting circumstances one seeks in the field, not a post processing workflow. Incidentally, I almost never use Photoshop. My images are processed on the more limited, but in my opinion quite accurate, Nikon Capture NX2. Selective edit tweaks are quite possible in both work environments, however, in portions of an image, for instance in accentuating or reducing brightness or contrast levels.