Changing the illumination of a photo (from day to night)

In this tutorial I have tried to explain the process of turning a photo from a day shot into a night image using photoshop. Bellow is the image that we start with.

1) Sky color
The first thing that we need to do is to change the sky color to a much darker tone.
For this we need to select it first; I usually start with the wand tool with a tolerance of about 22, and refine the selection using the magnetic lasso tool or the polygonal lasso.
After having completed the selection it would be a good idea to save the selection set (click on “selection, save selection, and type “sky”)
With the selection active, you can either paint the sky in a new layer, or paste a photo of the sky taken at night time.

2) Environment color
Click on “select”, “inverse” and create a new layer). Change the blending mode of the new layer from “normal” to “color”. Using the brush tool paint the new layer with a shade of dark blue. If you need more chromatic variety you can combine several shades with the brush hardness set to “0”.
You should obtain something similar to the image bellow:

The color is starting to look ok, but as you notice, the building needs to be a little bit darker. You can do this easily by selecting the “background” layer (the base layer that represents the original photo) and click on “Image”, “Adjustments”, “Brightness/Contrast”. Drag the “brightness” slider to the left until you obtain a result that you are happy with.

3) Placing lights inside the building
At the moment the picture already looks like a night photo, but due to the fact that there are no lights inside the building, the place looks deserted.
What we need to do at this point is to select the windows of the rooms that you want to place lights inside. You don’t need to select all the windows, because just like in real life the probability that every light in a building is on, is quite small. After having selected everything you need, save the selection set as “windows”.
Now comes the fun part; with the windows selection still active, make a new layer above the stack and start painting with shades of yellow, orange and very light blue. You need this kind of diversity in color, because in real life, different types of light sources produce different light colors. For example tungsten light bulbs cast an orange/yellowish light, while neon produces white/light blue hue and so on.
After having finished with the painting, change the blending mode of the layer, from “normal” to “linear light” and change the opacity to around 80%.
Here is what we have so far:

For more realism, we can add a subtle glow to the light in the windows; make a copy of the last layer and add a gaussian blur (in this case I have used a 20 a radius of 20 pixels for it). As you can see, the widows look much too bright. We can adjust this by loading the “windows” selection set, and press delete. This way there will be no overlapping between the new layer and the previous one, and we will only keep the glow around the windows.
Here is how it looks:

You can take this even further by cropping windows from other photos of buildings taken at night and compositing them in your imag.
4) Final touches
We’re almost there…
However, there is one more thing to do. If you look at photos taken at night you will notice that the bottom parts have a subtle orange/yellowish hue, due to the artificial lights cast by the street lights, car lights and neighboring buildings.
You can simulate this, by making a “foreground to transparent” gradient tool (with the foreground color set to orange), in a new layer, dragged from bottom to top. Change the blending mode to “color” and adjust the opacity to around 50% (or whatever looks good to you) and you are done.
Here is the final result:

Cartoon-Style Picture

Step 1: Preparing the Canvas

1. Open the original photo in Adobe Photoshop. (In this tutorial I use Adobe Photoshop CS. I haven’t got other versions of Adobe Photoshop, but I guess the entire steps described in this tutorial can be applied on any version of Photoshop)
On choosing the photo to be cartoonized, choose a clear and sharp photo with the face of the person clearly seen. Blur, out of focus, or under-exposed photo is a bad choice. The larger the resolution of the photo is the better




2. On the 'Layers Palette', drag and drop the 'background' layer to the 'New Layer' button to duplicate it.
Rename the new layer to 'original'. (To rename a layer, right-click on the name in the Layers Palette and select Layer Properties).
We will keep the original photo (the 'original' layer) intact in case something ''wrong' happened in our cartooning activity and need the original picture.




3. Lock this layer (click the 'lock all' button ), and turn the visibility of this layer off.






4. Double click the 'background' layer. Click 'OK'.







5. Create a new layer. Rename it into 'background'. We will use it as background layer for our cartoon photo. Fill it with orange using Paint Bucket tool.


6. Move the layer to the bottom.
Now our layers will look something like this:

Step 2: Removing Unwanted Areas of the Picture

Isolate the object. Clear out all unwanted parts of the photograph. Use Pen Tool for this purpose. If you've never used this tool previously, I suggest you to take a look at Melissa Clifton tutorial first.
You could use Eraser Tool, Magic Eraser Tool, or Background Eraser Tool which is simpler and faster for this purpose, but the result won't be as professional.
Take the Pen Tool, create a path around the object (Rihanna for this case), load path as selection (ctrl + Enter), inverse the selection (ctrl + shift + i), cut (del), then deselect the selection (ctrl + D).

Step 3: Creating outline of the picture

Our next step is to create the outline of the picture.
1. Copy the 'Layer 0' layer (drag and drop it to the 'create a new layer' button).
Rename it to 'outline'.






 
2. Menu: Image :: Adjustments :: Shadow/Highlight...
Click OK.
This step is not a must. But most of the time it will improve the clearness of the outline.


3. Make sure color palette is black for the foreground and white for the background. (Press 'd' if they're not).


 
4. Turn the picture into outline using photocopy filter.
menu: Filter :: Sketch :: Photocopy...
Set 'Detail' to 3.
Set 'Darkness' to 8.
Click 'OK'


The value for 'Detail' depends on the picture. Most of the time a value of '2' gives the best result.
Experiment with this setting. The goal is to make the outline as detail as possible so we can recognize the result as Rihanna, but not over-detailed that the outline becomes 'dirty'.



5. Turn the outline into solid black lines.
menu: Image :: Adjustments :: Threshold...
Turn the slider right and left, experiment with it, until the preview displays the best outline you can get (a compromise between 'detail enough' and 'clean enough').
Click OK when you're satisfied with the result.




That's it. Now we're done with the outline.
Here's the result so far..


Next, we will apply some shading to give depth to the picture and then colorize it.

Change Eye Color

End Result:


STEP 1:
Start with opening the picture you would like to change.
These are the pictures i used for this example.

Zoom in to the eye by pressing (Z) and clicking the eye.

STEP 2:
Click (Q) to open up the “Quick Mask Mode”, and press (B) or click the brush tool .
Now fill the eye area you would like to change.


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STEP 3:
When you are done Press (Q) again and then Press (M) or click to open the “Rectangular Marquee Tool”.
Right click the area you have painted and click “Select Inverse”, Right click again and click “Layer Via Copy”.


STEP 4:
Now you have 2 layers. Select the new layer “Layer 1″.

Press (Ctrl + U) or go to Image -> Adjustments -> Hue/Saturation…

Now move the “Hue” to get the desired color. You can play a little by changing the Saturation and Lightness, but mostly you dont need to edit them.


STEP 5:
When you are happy with the color click OK, Save the image and you will have a picture that looks something like this:



I Hope you enjoyed folowing this tutorial, please leave a comment with your creation.

Car movement effect

Step 1

Open the background you wish to use in Photoshop like below:

Step 2

Add a slight blur to the image by selecting Filter > Blur > Gaussian Blur and give a 1 pixels radius and click ok. Now add a radial blur to give a sense of movement by selecting Filter > Blur > Radial Blur and add the following settings:

• Amount = 30
• Blur method = Zoom
• Quality = Best

You should get the following blur image like below:

Step 3

Now open up your car image and remove the background, and then copy the image onto your blurry background like below:

Step 4

You have probably noticed the car is too big for the background. Resize the car by selecting the free transform tool (Ctrl + T) and make sure you hold down the shift key when resizing as this will maintain the aspect ratios.

Step 5

Now blend in the car with the background. Select the blur tool with an appropriate brush size and soften up the edges of the car. Now select Image > Adjustment > Brightness/Contract and adjust the brightness slider to the same brightness as the background layer.

You should now have a car movement effect.

Whiten Teeth Quickly & Easily

For a change of pace, I thought I’d post a Photoshop tutorial sharing some of my methodology for photo editing. Note: none of these photos are from clients of mine.
Even though someone’s teeth can look nice in person, sometimes warm light reflections and shadows can cause their teeth to look much darker or yellower than they actually are. In most cases, you’re working with a photo where someone wants to look their best, and a quick tooth touch-up can improve the entire photograph. If you’re a photographer, ultimately you want your clients to be happy with their photos; and if you’re a designer, you can’t really use a photo in a layout if the person has noticeably yellow teeth.
I have, over the course of my career, had to whiten hundreds of sets of teeth. Most of those were for advertising products for dentists — who are very demanding clients when it comes to the appearance of teeth! Digital tooth whitening doesn’t have to be a painstaking process. I’d like to share the method I came up with, which is pretty fast and gives what I think are natural-looking results. Please make sure that you have done the overall adjustments and corrections to your photo before you work on the teeth. It should be one of the last steps. If you’re going to adjust brightness, color, or levels after you’ve done specific adjustments like the teeth, you’ll likely run into some problems and make your job harder. Always start big and work down to specific touch-ups.
For our tutorial example, here is a lovely set of teeth that have a very natural off-white color:

Nothing really wrong with them, but they definitely have a yellowish tone.

The first thing you want to do is select the teeth themselves. I like to use the polygonal lasso tool, set to feather 2px with anti-aliasing turned on (on a high-res photo). Feel free to use your preferred selection method, but don’t set the feather too high or the end result will be glowy teeth. You really just want to feather the selection a little so you don’t have obvious sharp lines. Make sure not to select the gums or area behind the teeth. Also don’t select any back teeth that are partially hidden or in shadow.

Once the teeth are selected, go into your layers palette and create a ‘Color Balance’ adjustment layer. (Click the little yin-yang like icon at the bottom of the layers palette to bring up the adjustment layer options.)

Once you have selected the ‘Color Balance’ adjustment layer, a window will pop up. In general with this tutorial, what we’re trying to do is pull out some of those yellowy tones, and instead use blueish tones, which read more as white in the shadows. We don’t want to aim for perfection here, just an improvement. As a rule of thumb in this step, you’ll usually go further with the bottom-most Yellow | Blue slider, and more conservative on the top Cyan | Red slider. Make sure “Preview” is checked on. Don’t touch that middle slider, and don’t bother going into shadows and highlight adjustments — stick with midtones. The values I’ve used in the image above may not work for the photo you are adjusting. Use your judgement and go with what feels natural towards Cyan and towards Blue. Click “OK” when you’re happy with the color. This is only the first step and you can always go back to change it later by double-clicking the adjustment icon beside the mask in the layers palette.


Now, it’d be a total waste of time to select those teeth all over again for the next adjustment layer we’ll be using. Right-click the mask in the layers palette and “Add Layer Mask To Selection”.

Then make a new adjustment layer the same way we did before, clicking the icon at the bottom of the palette and selecting “Hue/Saturation” this time.

Again, you will get an adjustment window popping up. At this stage we’re turning down the saturation, and upping the lightness. Again, use values that look natural for your image (make sure ‘Preview’ is checked). Don’t touch the Hue slider. You always want to have some tone remaining in the teeth — you don’t want to make the mistake of making them bright, featureless white. Teeth that are completely blown out with a complete absence of shadow and highlight look fake and strange. There is no dodge tool used in this tutorial for that reason. Use the same values I have if you’re unsure. Click OK when you’re satisfied.

And voila, here is our final result! If you are working with some super yellow, dark teeth, you may need to add a third adjustment layer of Brightness/Contrast using the same selection from the teeth, and upping both the brightness and contrast. In most cases, you’ll only need the two adjustment layers I’ve used here, and in some cases the Color Balance will be enough. This one is a fairly subtle change:

We haven’t lost any of the actual tone of the teeth, we have simply changed the color of them to provide more of an appearance of whiteness and reduction of yellow. Here are two more examples of sets of teeth where I used the same technique, although these were more in need of change (and had more dramatic results):

The back teeth that were in shadow and looked gray instead of yellow were not adjusted, since they were already at the desired tone.

On this one I had to go back and edit my mask because the lines were originally too sharp — using a soft-edged eraser, I took away some of my layer mask for a more subtle fade to the back. Speaking of which…
Adjustment Layers?!
If this is the first time you’ve worked with adjustment layers, you might be wondering what the point of is, instead of going through the Image — Adjustments menu. One very good reason: non-destructive editing. When using adjustment layers, your selection/mask is editable, as are the adjustments themselves. You can turn them on and off, make them transparent, or trash them altogether if they aren’t working. Non-destructive editing is a wonderful time-saver, and eliminates repetition of selections or starting over when editing doesn’t quite work out. Plus, since they are masks, they don’t have to be all or nothing, on or off. You can use a transparent brush and add or remove subtle hints of the mask. Very exciting stuff!
When I am editing photos, I always save an editable PSD file, and then flatten and export a JPG or TIF to actually use or print. If I have to make further changes, I trash the flattened file and go back to my layered PSD, generating a new flat file when I am done. It seems like some extra work, but the moment you have to go back and adjust or remove changes you have made, it’s something you’ll be very glad to have saved.
When editing layer/adjustment masks, make sure to click on the mask itself, and that your background and foreground colors in Photoshop are set to the default (shortcut is to hit the letter D on your keyboard). Then just start brushing or erasing as you normally would (on the photo itself). Your eraser and your brush will use to remove or add to the mask, respectively. Make sure you click back on the layer if you want to do anything else to the photo, otherwise the layer mask is still “active”.
As a last note…
If you’ve brightened teeth, you’ll usually need to brighten the subject’s eyes as well. It looks unnatural in a photo to have bright white teeth and dark whites of the eyes. It makes your editing stand out much more. I wouldn’t use the same technique as in this tutorial for the whites of the eyes, unless they are looking quite yellow — and never use it for the iris or pupil or you’ll change their eye color, a lot. A simple levels for the whole eye will usually work, although sometimes you need to do the whites and the iris & pupil separately so you don’t get glowing, supernatural eyes. As with the teeth, I would recommend leaving some tone in the whites of the eyes for a more natural look.
Next tutorial?
I’d like to keep doing these tutorials, so what would you like to see detailed next? Fixing blemishes and skin imperfections? Doing digital makeup? Reducing shiny skin? How to remove someone from a photo? Something else entirely that you deal with often and think “There must be an easier way”? There are countless tutorials out there teaching cool glowy special effects, but I’d like to focus on the practical day-to-day editing that lots of us use Photoshop for. Please leave a comment with your suggestion and include your e-mail address, and you’ll be notified once the next tutorial is posted!