If you're looking for those surreal HDR-style photos, you'll have tons of manual work to do. There is no quick and easy solution for this. The tutorials might look cheesy because of the samples they're using. You want to take the technique and see if it works on your photo.
Remember to use visual cues in the photo to help you guess how objects should look in response to light at that time of night (e.g. trees that should be black silhouettes, mountains that are barely visible against a dark sky, artificial light, etc.)
If some parts of the photo just don't respond well to Photoshop, you can try modeling those parts of the scene you want and render using night lighting, covering the rest with Photoshopped bits of your original photo.
I can't say I've ever tried to make a daylight perspective photo look like night time, but I have made google maps plans go from day to night using a lot of layers... It's an interesting challenge though!
The following assumes you know the basics of photoshop so if you need clarification, don't hesitate to ask.
> Sky: you need to be able to isolate the sky and make it its own layer, turn it off. Then find a stock image of a night-time sky (don't know if you're going for evening or full on night, so use whatever works) and then place it behind. Turn the 'real sky' layer on again, but use a blending mode and a lower opacity (maybe... soft light @ 30% or something? You'd have to play...)
> For the rest of the image, it would be important that there aren't a lot of strong shadows. I would make a new layer and dump some dark blue, then another layer of black. Change the opacities until they look 'dark' enough, but where you can still see the important elements (if they are important). You could also try copying the background and multiplying it in blend modes to make things darker.
> Lighting. If there are visible windows and streetlights in the photo, you're going to have to do some work.
> For windows lit from behind: you will probably need to make a shape overtop with the pen tool (make sure they are all on separate layers, so you can alter each one differently). In my experience light tends to look different depending on what's in the room and what color the room is, so don't make every window a uniform yellowish-white. Some will be more orange, some will be more red, some will be blueish. Make the shapes/colors accordingly. Then right click on a shape layer and go to 'layer styles'. (You might have to rasterize first, I can't remember.) There you can add/change the inner/outer glow. Finally, change the opacity until it looks right. You might duplicate some for added brightness.
> For streetlights, a large, soft eraser brush over the dark layers at 50% in the general region of the streetlamp (for light falloff), then a smaller eraser at 35%, and finally a medium brush of yellowish-orange or white (depending on the color of the streetlights) concentrated where the actual source of light is. Follow that with the same kind of layer style as with the windows (inner/outer glow)
> For traffic streaks, I would draw a couple swervy lines with the pen tool (on their own layers). Make sure the pen tool is on 'outlines' not 'shapes' and when you've drawn a line, press B for brush. Make a small, medium-soft brush at like 3-5 px (depends on the size of your photo). Pick a color you want the light to be. Then press P for pen again. Right click on the line you made with the pen tool and choose 'stroke path', 'brush' for source and 'simulate pressure'. When that's done, you can press delete to get rid of the pen line, leaving just the brush stroke. Then you can go into layer styles of the brushed layer and do the inner/outer glow again. Hurray! Duplicate this process a few times with different grades of red, orange, and white and you've got streaking traffic! If you want to get really fancy, any cars can be outlined and copied to their own layer, then put through a motion blur filter.
> I've found some kinda cool free brushes online that imitate star sparkles. I know it sounds cheesy but if used with strict moderation, they can help imitate the gleam of headlights or something super bright in the distance. I think they were from this site: http://colorburned.com/brushes -- you can also find light streaks and other things there.
I don't know what kind of image you're working with. Some of these suggestions might not work if it's a huge city image, or if it's a single family home suburb. But I hope the general principles are applicable!
How to make Day-to-Night pics in Photoshop
HELP!!!!
googled some tutorials but a lot of them look very cheesy. Looking for some real good ones and or some tips that I need to understand.
Go back, take the photo at night? Photoshop is something special, but it ain't magic.
i cant, the location is far, far away.
If you're looking for those surreal HDR-style photos, you'll have tons of manual work to do. There is no quick and easy solution for this. The tutorials might look cheesy because of the samples they're using. You want to take the technique and see if it works on your photo.
Remember to use visual cues in the photo to help you guess how objects should look in response to light at that time of night (e.g. trees that should be black silhouettes, mountains that are barely visible against a dark sky, artificial light, etc.)
If some parts of the photo just don't respond well to Photoshop, you can try modeling those parts of the scene you want and render using night lighting, covering the rest with Photoshopped bits of your original photo.
I can't say I've ever tried to make a daylight perspective photo look like night time, but I have made google maps plans go from day to night using a lot of layers... It's an interesting challenge though!
The following assumes you know the basics of photoshop so if you need clarification, don't hesitate to ask.
> Sky: you need to be able to isolate the sky and make it its own layer, turn it off. Then find a stock image of a night-time sky (don't know if you're going for evening or full on night, so use whatever works) and then place it behind. Turn the 'real sky' layer on again, but use a blending mode and a lower opacity (maybe... soft light @ 30% or something? You'd have to play...)
> For the rest of the image, it would be important that there aren't a lot of strong shadows. I would make a new layer and dump some dark blue, then another layer of black. Change the opacities until they look 'dark' enough, but where you can still see the important elements (if they are important). You could also try copying the background and multiplying it in blend modes to make things darker.
> Lighting. If there are visible windows and streetlights in the photo, you're going to have to do some work.
> For windows lit from behind: you will probably need to make a shape overtop with the pen tool (make sure they are all on separate layers, so you can alter each one differently). In my experience light tends to look different depending on what's in the room and what color the room is, so don't make every window a uniform yellowish-white. Some will be more orange, some will be more red, some will be blueish. Make the shapes/colors accordingly. Then right click on a shape layer and go to 'layer styles'. (You might have to rasterize first, I can't remember.) There you can add/change the inner/outer glow. Finally, change the opacity until it looks right. You might duplicate some for added brightness.
> For streetlights, a large, soft eraser brush over the dark layers at 50% in the general region of the streetlamp (for light falloff), then a smaller eraser at 35%, and finally a medium brush of yellowish-orange or white (depending on the color of the streetlights) concentrated where the actual source of light is. Follow that with the same kind of layer style as with the windows (inner/outer glow)
> For traffic streaks, I would draw a couple swervy lines with the pen tool (on their own layers). Make sure the pen tool is on 'outlines' not 'shapes' and when you've drawn a line, press B for brush. Make a small, medium-soft brush at like 3-5 px (depends on the size of your photo). Pick a color you want the light to be. Then press P for pen again. Right click on the line you made with the pen tool and choose 'stroke path', 'brush' for source and 'simulate pressure'. When that's done, you can press delete to get rid of the pen line, leaving just the brush stroke. Then you can go into layer styles of the brushed layer and do the inner/outer glow again. Hurray! Duplicate this process a few times with different grades of red, orange, and white and you've got streaking traffic! If you want to get really fancy, any cars can be outlined and copied to their own layer, then put through a motion blur filter.
> I've found some kinda cool free brushes online that imitate star sparkles. I know it sounds cheesy but if used with strict moderation, they can help imitate the gleam of headlights or something super bright in the distance. I think they were from this site: http://colorburned.com/brushes -- you can also find light streaks and other things there.
I don't know what kind of image you're working with. Some of these suggestions might not work if it's a huge city image, or if it's a single family home suburb. But I hope the general principles are applicable!
Best of luck :)
^ thanks stephanie!
xoxoxoxxoxoxoxoxoxxoxoxxx ;)
i just wanted the basic, basic principles so i can play around with it.
the more i fiddle the more i love photoshop. such a powerful software. it should be banned
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