Photoshop Tutorial: Turn a scene from day to night

Day To Night in Photoshop

Hi folks. In this tutorial, I'm going to take you through how to make it look like a daytime photo was really taken at night. (Really, it's one of those tricks that you should really have in your Photoshop arsenal. Amazing how often the need for it crops up.) I'm going to be using this photo:  

which I took in Boston's North End, and which you are free to download and follow along with. I chose this one because it has clearly-defined borders between the sky and everything else, it has some windows where we can do some cool light effects later on, and the natural shadows give the image a lot of depth, which can be a problem when you're darkening lots of parts of an image. Like I said, feel free to use this particular image, or you can choose your own. If you're working with a different photo, try to choose one with good contrast and a clear sky. Also note that your mileage may vary on the settings I use for the brushes, etc. Do what looks good for your image.

Step 0. 

Import your image into Photoshop and make a copy of it. (You always make backups of your images, right? Right?

Step 1. 

Pick up the Magic Wand tool.

Using these settings:

select all of the sky area. Use the shift key to add areas that don't get selected from your first click.  Just make sure that you get every bit of the sky, otherwise you'll have weird artifacts when we start applying adjustment layers and stuff. If you're following along with this image, be especially careful where the lamp and the electrical wires meet the building. It's worth taking the time to make this selection a good one. This is the area you should have selected: 

We're going to use this particular selection a lot in this tutorial, so it may be worth saving it in the Channels palette for easy access. (or you can Alt-click on any of these adjustment layer masks. Just know where you can find it easily.)

Step 2. 

With your new selection, go to Layer>New Adjustment Layer > Levels. 

Name like so. 

Open the Adjustments tab (automatically pops up in CS 5.5) and use the settings below:

Step 3. 


Go to Layer>New Adjustment Layer>Brightness/Contrast. You should use adjustment layers whenever possible (rather than making edits directly on the layer in question) so that you can edit any change you've made at any time. Working non-destructively lets you avoid extensive re-dos by giving you a lot more dimensions of control.

Name like so

Bring the brightness down and the contrast way up. Don't go crazy with the brightness setting - you still want a bit of color left in the sky so it shows through later. We'll darken it up more when we add the stars.

Step 4. 

Add a new layer on top of the other layers and call it something creatively descriptive:

Step 5. 

Go to Edit>Fill and fill the entire layer with black. 

Step 6. 

Now we're going to start adding some stars. Go to Filter>Noise>Add Noise.

Bump the amount of noise way up (above a certain point it doesn't matter how much, but definitely somewhere above 200%. Make sure that the distribution is uniform and that you check the monochromatic box. Hit OK.

Note: If you're not happy with the noise level, you can do this step two or three times in a row to try and get a look you like. Play with the slider until you get a white:black ratio you're comfortable with. Obviously, more white will give you more stars, and more black will give you fewer, farther apart.

Step 7. 


The next step is to blur the stars a little and make them a little less harsh. Go to Filter>Blur>Gaussian Blur.

You can use a 1 px radius, but I think I'd recommend using a 2 or even 3 px radius. I'm using an image that's twice the resolution of the one I posted, and I think next time I'd use a bit more blur. Keep in mind that stars that are too blurry will look less realistic and more surreal. 

Step 8. 

Reselect the sky by Alt-clicking on one of the adjustment layer masks.

Press Ctrl+Shift+I to select the inverse. You should see the marching-ants selection line change subtly. Make sure you're still on the stars layer and delete the building. 

While you still have the stars layer selected, drop the opacity down to about 40%. Your layer thumbnail should look like this: 

Step 9. 

Now it's time to really make them look like stars. Go to Image>Adjustments>Curves (Sorry, no screenshot). Make sure that you are NOT using an adjustment layer this time...I know I said just a minute ago to use them whenever possible, and this time, it's just not possible. The effect just doesn't come out right - I don't know why. 

You should have a nice regular curve (because you gave your noise a uniform distribution, right?) and a 1:1 line superimposed over that. Adjust the line like so: 

It's ok to be approximate here. Check the "Preview" box so that you can see how the stars look, and do what looks best to you. 

Side note: for some reason, after I clicked OK here, the image on the canvas didn't match the preview image - there was a bunch of background filler that popped back into view, and I still don't know why. If that happens to you, it's fine - leave it, and we'll fix it later. 

Step 10. 


Select the sky again and make a Brightness/Contrast layer on top of everything (we're back to adjustment layers now). Bring up the brightness and contrast as below:

Step 11. 

This step will remove much of that mid-level noise and leave you with just the largest/brightest stars. You could leave more of the filler than I did to make a particularly star-filled sky (and actually, I like that effect - it would be great in some fantastical forest scene, but I didn't think it quite fit here).

With your stars layer selected, go to Filter>Noise>Dust & Scratches. Adjust the sliders to your liking. Here's what I used: 

I wouldn't use a radius greater than two pixels here, but you can adjust the threshhold levels as you like to increase or decrease the number of fainter stars you see. 

Step 12: Checking in. 

Take a look at what you have so far. It should look something like this: 

Yes? Yes. Onwards.

Step 13. 

Since we have sort of a twilight scene, where the sky is lighter at the bottom right and darker at the top left, we need to remove the stars from the lit area. We'll do that using a simple layer mask. Select the sky again and add a layer mask. 

Now, select the gradient tool with a simple black to white gradient. Choose the radial gradient style and click in the middle of the brightest area of the sky. Drag towards the top left. 

Gradient tool icon.

Use these settings:

(that's a black-to-white radial gradient, normal mode, opacity 100%, check Dither and Transparency)

You probably won't be able to get a perfect mask with just the gradient tool, so select your brush tool with these settings:

I would use an opacity of 15 or 20 percent and a ridiculously low flow rate. Anything with hard edges here is going to look weird. With black, paint on the layer mask until you're happy with how the stars fade into view. My mask looks like this: 

Step 14: 

We're done with the sky for now - there's some touch-up work to be done, maybe with clouds or a moon, but it's enough to give us a sense of nighttime and a color palette so we can adjust the buildings. To get the sky layers out of the way, I put them in their own group:

Step 15.

Now let's work on making the building, which is currently doing a great job of reflecting lots of sunlight, look like it's really only reflecting the last bits of a sunset. To that end: 

Select the Burn tool with these settings: 

(Brush 125px, 0 hardness, Range: highlights, exposure 51%, check protect tones)

Make sure that you have your background copy layer active. Select the sky again, then press Ctrl+Shift+I to select the inverse, which is the building. This selection will prevent you from "coloring outside the lines" and darkening the sky when you don't want to.

Now use the burn tool to darken the rooftop edges. Don't make it uniform. In the image below, the red arrows point out the edges where I was focusing, and the green arrows are where I tried to leave a bit more light. Corners and extreme edges should be more visible than long, flat stretches.

Step 16. 

Still with the Burn tool, switch from highlights to midtones and darken the area pointed out below.

Now darken the windows and ledges. You may have to flip back and forth between highlights and midtones to get the right effect. What you're aiming for is to tone down the reflected light on all those surfaces. To start, you can take the Burn tool at a very low strength, set it first to highlights and then to midtones, and with a very large, soft brush go over the entire left side of the building. Then go back with a smaller brush and do some touch-up work. 

Step 17. 

All that burning should have decreased the saturation significantly, which is good - night vision has very low color depth - but we need to bring the contrast back up. To do this, set the burn tool to focus on the shadows, bring the strength down to 1 or 2%, and deepen the shadows around the windows and under the roof edges.

Step 18. 

Now do much the same thing on the front and right sides of the building. Use a very light hand on the front of the building. There are some great blues in there that you don't want to get rid of. 

A good place to focus is those overexposed parts over on the right side. Use a brush that's the width of the panel you're working on, and use long brush strokes to dim the brightness.

When you go to darken the shadows, make sure that your exposure is set very, very low. A little goes a long way here.

Step 19. 


Still with the building selected (as the inverse of the sky), use the Burn tool on the highlight setting to remove that weird neon glow around the lamp.

Feel free to go back and do any touch-up work on any part of the building after this. Since we're editing the layer directly, it's better to use a light hand and do edits later, since you won't be able to Ctrl+Z your way out of anything you do here after a while. (Also, you are taking snapshots of your work along the way in the History palette, aren't you?)

Step 20. 


Now that the building looks suitably dark, it's time to put in some lights of our own.

Make a new layer for the new light. Title it something like "Bottom light top pane".

Press "P" to select the Pen tool

and make the following shape over the front bottom window:

Still with the pen tool selected, right click and say "Make selection." You'll get this window: 

Put in the settings above. (Your feathering setting may vary depending on your resolution. If you're using the original image from here, note that the copy on the website is half the size I'm using right now to make this tutorial. Remember that when you're setting everything here and in the layer styles below.) 

Step 21. 


Select the gradient tool.

I forgot to take a screen grab of this, but make a radial gradient from #fcea56 to #fef89d. With the window still selected, put the center of the gradient in the middle bottom pane and drag upwards until you hit the edge of the glass, and let go.

Step 22. 


Drop the opacity of the layer down to 50 or 60% so that you can see where the individual panes of glass are.

Press "E" for the eraser tool and use the following settings:

(Brush size 7, 100% hardness, brush mode, opacity 26%, flow 23%)

Carefully erase the gradient so that the struts between the panes of glass show through. If you're using a touch-pad, I'd recommend hunting down a mouse. If you're using a mouse, I'd recommend hunting down a tablet. Just try to get something steadier than what you're currently using. 

If you can't do that...just go slowly, and remember that Ctrl+Z is your friend. 

 Step 23. 


Now we get to use my favorite part of Photoshop, layer styles. If you can ever accomplish something with a layer style over something like a brush, jump at the chance. Layer styles are exact, repeatable, and eraseable, something that not all actions in Photoshop are.

Make these changes on the windowpane layer:

Step 24. 

Make a new layer for the bottom piece of the window. 

Again using the Pen tool, select the bottom screen. 

Right click and say "Make selection". Here you can fill the shape with a gradient or just a solid color - I used #faffac. 

Finally, bring the opacity of the layer down to about 25%. 

Step 25. 

Now apply these layer styles: 

Step 26. 

I used the same technique to light up two other windows. Keep in mind that the layer styles settings will be slightly different for each one. I also changed the colors - I wanted to keep the window in front the warmest, so the other two have colors that are closer to white. 

It's also probably best to keep each pane on its own layer so that you can apply layer styles to each one individually. When you're done with all the lights, put them in a group so they're out of your way.

Step 27. 


Part of the reason I didn't go crazy with removing the highlights on the right side of the building was because I was planning on cheating a little bit and using the lamp as a light source instead.

Make a new layer and use the pen tool to make the following shape.

Fill it with a radial gradient from #fdea4c at 100% to #fdfac2 at 60%. (Sorry no screencap.)

Step 28. 


Resize the light as you see fit - I had to poke at it a few times before I was happy with the shape. Don't be afraid to use the Perspective and Distort transform functions. They're very helpful when you have a regular shape (like a rectangle) being viewed from an oblique perspective.

Step 29. 

Apply these layer styles: 

I didn't show it here, but I also turned the opacity of the whole layer down to 68%. 

Step 30: Touch-ups.

Almost there. There's a bit of touch up work to do, especially around here: 

And here: 

First, select the buildings and use the burn tool to get rid of that (very persistent) neon glow. Go all the way around the edge of the building to get spots that you may have missed before.

Next, select the blur tool. Using a medium-sized soft brush, go over any pixelated or rough edges where the magic wand may not have made the best border. Be careful not to lose any detail, like around the wires, but do try and get rid of any rough edges. 

The last thing I did was to blur the stars a little more. I used a Gaussian blur of 1.7 pixels. 

The finished product: