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How to turn day to night in Lightroom

Colin Smith

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Day to night in Lightroom

Turning a day photo into a night photo, is fun and can be challenging. When I was in visual effects school, this was a fundamental skill everyone needed to learn and the official name is Day for Night. I have made a tutorial on day for night in Photoshop. Why not do a tutorial in Lightroom. Although, I am using Lightroom Classic, this also works the same in Lightroom. This also works the same in Adobe Camera RAW. The written steps are below, watch the video to see everything in action.

Here is the starting image, It’s a photo I captured in Kauai, Hawaii.

Beginning image of a house in the jungle in Hawaii

Changing Day to Night

The first step is to make the entire scene look like night. This is accomplished by darkening the tones and choosing a bluish hue to simulate moon lighting. You can see the settings in the develop module.

turning day to night, day for night, lightroom settings

You might have a little moonlight in the scene. Using a linear gradient, add a little bit of light to the sky.

changing day to night in lightroom

Adding artificial illumination

I see there is a light fixture in the shot. Let’s turn on this light and use it for our illumination to sell the effect of night.

The light fixture will cast light around it.

To add that light, choose a radial gradient.

how to use gradients as lights in lightroom

Brighten up the area under the light bulb.

add light in lightroom

With the brush, remove from the gradient to brush away the light from areas that shouldn’t be illuminated, such as above the eves.

Add a brush and make it very bright to turn on the light.

illuminate a light in lightroom

A light bulb will create a pool of light on the ground under it.

Apply a radial gradient to add the light area. Make it heavily feathered for soft light.

how to use radial gradients in Lightroom

Turn up the brightness just enough, so that the ground has some nice soft pool of light.

add a pool of light in lightroom

Lighting up the stairs

The stairs are directly under the light bulb and will be lit up. Using the brush, add light to the stairs.

add light to stairs in lightroom

Because the light is above and behind the stairs, light wouldn’t reach the front of the stairs and there would be shadows under the overhangs.

Use a second brush and turn the brightness down. Paint shadows on the front faces of the stairs. This helps add some depth too.

painting shadows onto stairs

Objects facing the light would get a little bit of edge light.

Using the brush with Detect edges on, paint the leaves that are facing towards the light.

add light to the tres and bushes

Keep adding edge lights to areas that are facing the light such as the tops of the stair rails.

painting the light using brushes in Lightroom

Now we have a building nestled in the jungle and mountains, at night, with a light on. You can repeat these steps if you want to light up the windows.

the final day to night conversion in Lightroom Classic

Even if you aren’t turning day to night, you can use parts of this tutorial for smaller tasks, such as turning on a light, or adding shadows to stairs or edge lighting to touch up your photos. I really enjoy doing this kind of work in Photoshop and Lightroom. It’s oddly relaxing.

I hope you enjoyed this! Let me know in the comments.

Colin


PS Don’t forget to follow us on Social Media for more tips.. (I've been posting some fun Instagram and Facebook Stories lately)
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