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This is one I've been using for years, and with the right photo (meaning a photo where seeing a ray of light coming in through a window would make sense) it works wonders.
What you're basically going to do is draw your light beam using the Polygonal Lasso tool. That selection then becomes an Alpha channel that you will blur to make the edges nice and soft. Then you darken the photo and lighten the beam. Now, you get to decide (near the end of the tutorial) if the beam will cover your subjects (and that can often really make it look realistic), or if the beam will simply cast behind them onto a wall. The great thing isthe choice is yours.
Step 1. OPEN YOUR PHOTO AND DUPLICATE THE BACKGROUND LAYER
Open the photo you want to add a light beam effect to (in this case, a bride leaning against a wall). Press Command-J (PC: Control-J) to duplicate the layer (as shown here).
Step 2. GET THE POLYGONAL LASSO TOOL AND DRAW YOUR BEAM OF LIGHT
Press Shift-L until you get the Polygonal Lasso tool (which draws straight line selections), and draw a "beam of light" shape similar to the one shown here. Make sure you go right to the edges of your image with your selection, because you don't want a gap between your beam and the edge of your photo.
Step 3. SAVE YOUR SELECTION AS AN ALPHA CHANNEL
While your selection is in place, go to the Channels palette and click on the Save Selection as Channel icon at the bottom of the palette. Now, click on Alpha 1 (as shown here) and press Command-D (PC: Control-D) to Deselect.
Step 4. ADD A GAUSSIAN BLUR TO THIS CHANNEL TO SOFTEN THE EDGES, THEN LOAD IT AS A SELECTION
To make the edges of our beam soft, go under the Filter menu, under Blur, and choose Gaussian Blur. When the dialog appears, enter 14 pixels for low-res images (as shown here) or 30 pixels for high-res, 300 ppi images to blur the channel. Now, you'll need to load the Alpha channel as a selection, so click on the Load Channel as Selection button at the bottom of the palette. Once it's loaded, return to the RGB Composite channel by pressing Command-~ (PC: Control-~).
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