Photoshop Tutorials

There are several ways to turn a photo of a house in the daytime to night. The easiest of which would be to sit outside the same house in the same position with a camera for 12 hours and snap a photograph in both day and night settings. But for those without the spare 12 hours a day, there's a quicker way to achieve this same effect from right in the comfort of your own home in Phoenix.

Final Result Preview

Extract the foreground

The first thing I did was to extract the foreground. I copied the original image first, as we'll be needing the original later. On the original copy, using the Polygonal Selection Tool I was easily able to select the angular outlines of the house.

With the house and rest of the foreground selected, I copied and pasted this selection onto a new layer. I used the Eraser Tool to clean off any of the remaining edges that needed extracting.

Make the sky darker

Next, I wanted to create a darker night sky. I created a new layer below my foreground house layer and filled it with a gradient. I selected the Gradient Tool and set it to Radial. I then set the leftmost color to a dark shade of blue (Hex value #0D3499) and the right color to an even darker shade (#000050). I dragged the tool from the center towards the outside until I was left with a night sky gradient I was happy with.

Adjust the foreground to match the sky

I then needed to darken the foreground layer to match the night sky. I selected the foreground layer in the Layers Palette again. I opened the Brightness & Contrast menu under the Image tab and lowered the Brightness to -100, and lowered the Contrast to -70. I then opened the Hue & Saturation menu and dropped the Saturation level to -70 and dropped the Brightness on this menu to -40 more.

Add some blue tone to the house

I wanted to add a blue tone to the house. With the house layer selected, I clicked Select > Selection from Layer. This automatically created the selection of the house layer for me. I created a new layer and filled this selection on the new layer with blue. I set this layer's blend mode to Overlay then dropped the Alpha to 70%.

Light up the windows

The house looked lonely in this state, so I decided to add presence of people to this house by lighting up the windows. Using the Polygonal Selection Tool, I made a selection around the glass panes of one of the windows and filled it with a yellow tone on a new layer.

Add finishing touches to the window lights

I added a slight blur to this layer through the Layer Filters options. I applied a strength of 2 for both the X and Y axes for the window on High quality.

I then wanted to apply a glowing effect around the window. On the same Layer Filters menu, I selected the Glow option. I set the Glow's strength to 2, set the strength of the X axis to 12 and set the strength of the Y axis to 17 and changed the color to a yellowish orange tone. I applied the same process for the rest of the windows I wanted glowing.

Use distortion to make the light more realistic

I wanted to create the effect of the light from the windows affecting their surroundings. I copied the window layers onto new layers. Using the Distortion Tool, I created a perspective effect to this copy by dragging the bottom two bounding boxes of the Distortion Tool further out.

Create lights on the ground

I clicked Select > Selection from Layer on this layer. With this area still as my current selection, I selected the original image from the Layers Palette. I copied this area and pasted it onto a new layer and dragged it to the top of the palette. This created the effect of the window casting light on the ground.

I set this layer's Alpha to 50%, and using the Eraser Tool set to 0% Hardness, I lightly dispersed the light to fade further from the original window.

Light up the streetlight

In order to light up the streetlight, I created a new layer and painted over the lamp with the Paintbrush Tool in white. I then opened the Layer Filters menu on this layer and applied a Glow effect to it, with the Alpha level of 0.95, Strength of 2, and set the Blur amount of the X and Y axes to 30. I set the Glow's color to a yellowish orange color.

Create a blurred ellipse

I then created a new layer and using the Elliptical Tool I drew a circle. I selected the Transformation Tool and dragged the circle over the streetlight, then applied a blur effect with the Layer Filters menu. I set the blur level to 88 for both the X and Y axes, and lowered the Alpha to 72%.

Create lights from the streetlight

And just as I did for the glow on the ground from the windows, I did the same for the area directly surrounding the streetlight, making a selection of the area on my original layer and copying it to a new layer and using the Eraser Tool to soften the edges.

Add stars to the night sky

And to finish the effect, I wanted to add stars and a moon to the night sky. Using the Paintbrush Tool, I drew a circle for the moon. Using the Eraser Tool, I clicked on a portion of the circle to create a crescent shape. I applied a slight glow around the moon with the Layer Filters menu. I applied a strength of 22 to both the X and Y axes and set the color to a light blue tone.

Paint in some stars by hand

And for the stars, I just painted them in with the Paintbrush Tool of varying sizes and set this layer's Alpha to 40% to complete the night sky effect.