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I'm recreating an image for a customer, with better item symmetry and so on, I've almost finished it, although I have no idea about how to give this white beam effect on a layer on top of the main picture.
I drew some arrows pointing to those "white beams".
You could draw a shape with the pen tool, fill it white, reduce the layer opacity, and apply an outer glow layer style.
I would suggest you create this in 2 or even 3 layers. One as a shape with low opacity and Screen as blend mode (as mentioned above). Then, on a separate layer above that create a selection from the shape you initially drew, with the a generous feather radius. Fill the selection with white and set the blending mode to Linear Dodge (Add), then adjust the opacity until it resembles spreading light. Create a selection of the second layer and modify said selection (either expand or contract) and adjust the opacity again so it doesn't "wash out" too much.
I prefer this approach because it gives me more control over the amount of spread.
