Photoshop to Transform Rendering Day to Night

Photoshopping a rendering from Day to Night

Sometimes it’s easier to use Photoshop to convert a rendering rather than going back to the 3D data and CGI software. This video shows that 90 minute process, condensed into less than 3 minutes.

  1. Remove Sky, using the polygon lasso and a feather of 1px, I removed the sky, and replaced it with a sky representative of something much later in the evening.
  2. After removing the sky, I made the tower frame and glass very dark. The metal would not be illuminated, so it would appear to be almost black. (0:25)
  3. Then the longest step, adding lights in the tower – I just used a white/yellow brush and painted in the windows. This step takes time. There’s no fast way to do it. It took me about 30 minutes.
  4. Then I added ‘lights’ to the context. Just glowing points.
  5. Followed by sky gardens on the tower, special spots. (1:40)
  6. I then began dressing up the top of the tower, adding some sky glow in a color. Assume it to be a misty night, where the sky itself would begin to glow around the tower. (2:10)
  7. Make the water darker because the only illumination late at night would be coming from the tower itself, so the water to the sides would be dark.

1 comment

  1. Hi! I love this tutorial! Thank you for this. However, the video is too fast, I kept on hitting pause-play. 🙂 I understand you need to compress all that 90minute work into 3. Hope you can list step by step (not very detailed, though) for this. Eg. a) What did you do with the other photo (0:24)? b) Putting the lights (brushing the lights) c) adjustments on the ground background, illuminating them. Thank you very much!

Comments are closed.