Alter Mid-day to Dusk Lighting Technique...

Sunbum

Hi,
I'm playing around with some photos this afternoon where I take a well composed picture with a blah sky and blend in a more dynamic sky from my sky collection. I'm looking for direction, thoughts, or articles relating to altering the original photos mid-day lighting so that it is toned down to better match some of the brillant dusk skies I've matched it with. One example I've tinkered with today is that of an old brick lighthouse. It's obvious in the pic which direction the sun was shining from. I've blended in a very nice dusk background that has dark storm clouds peppered throughout with an orange sunset glow beaming between the breaks. It contrasts nicely with the reds and whites of the lighthouse.

Anyway, I didn't plan this pic out in advance else I would've shot it later in the evening. I'm more or less expanding my Photoshop CS3 skills and practicing swaping backgrounds in and out rather than salvaging a priceless shot.

Cheers,
Ty

jjbong

Not clear what you're asking.

I'm hearing one or more of the following:

1. How you replace a sky in an image with a sky from another image. If this is the question, there's a great discussion here [thread]116223[/thread]
2. Having replaced the sky, how you match the color temperature in the foreground to the background.
3. Having replaced the sky, how you match the lighting direction.

Which of these are you asking? Or is it something else? It would help if you posted images (before/after).

Sunbum

Hi,
Best match would be number 3. Having replaced the sky, how you match the lighting direction. I've attached the pic with the new sky already in place. As you can see the mid-day lighting hits the opposite side of the lighthouse. What would be the workflow to tone that bright side down.

Cheers,
Ty

jjbong

I tried a couple of things, with no success. It isn't too hard to darken the light areas. The problem is the shadow/light transition that you see in the white area on the top of the lighthouse and in the bricks on the light side. I couldn't find a way to do a natural match, even with selections.

Perhaps someone else will have better luck.

Sunbum

Thanks John for taking a look. That's the dilemma I ran into. Since this was more or less an excercise in expanding my CS3 skills I'm not worried that it's not possible. I just picked up over the weekend a copy of the book "Layers: The Complete Guide to Photoshop's Most Powerful Feature" and will play around with some of the advanced techniques and see what I can do for grins.

Cheers,
Ty

Wachel

Sunbum wrote:

Thanks John for taking a look. That's the dilemma I ran into. Since this was more or less an excercise in expanding my CS3 skills I'm not worried that it's not possible. I just picked up over the weekend a copy of the book "Layers: The Complete Guide to Photoshop's Most Powerful Feature" and will play around with some of the advanced techniques and see what I can do for grins.

Cheers,
Ty

The lighting direction may be off but you could add an orange tint to the light house to help it match the tone of the sky.

jjbong

I took another hack at it, and got this (just working on the bricks, not the white top):



I used some pretty gross selections of the light and dark brick areas on the right, and tried to match the color with the dark brick area on the right with LAB curves masked by the selections. If you think it has potential, I can go into the details. I think the white areas are easier - you can just paint over them with a grey sampled from the dark area in color mode.

RalphAdam

nice job, John!

jjbong wrote:

I took another hack at it, and got this (just working on the bricks, not the white top):



I used some pretty gross selections of the light and dark brick areas on the right, and tried to match the color with the dark brick area on the right with LAB curves masked by the selections. If you think it has potential, I can go into the details. I think the white areas are easier - you can just paint over them with a grey sampled from the dark area in color mode.

Well done -- really nice! :>) If this is carried further--it seems to me that the inside of the light-housing facing the setting sun would need tinting.

Ralph

Sunbum

Thanks for the second look John. You've given me the direction/technique I need to tone down the bright factor on the lit side. I'll tackle it this weekend and post my results for you to see.

Thanks again!

Cheers,
Ty

jjbong

My directions are in error. Color mode for the brush won't work. Use either normal or luminosity. If neither works, try the clone stamp tool, normal mode.

Sunbum

Hey John,
Here's the finished pic. Not perfect, of course, but it gave me some practice with some new skills. Thanks for your help on this excercise!

Cheers,
Ty

jjbong

I think you did a very good job on matching the tones on the bricks and on the white top of the lighthouse.

However, I think the picture is overall too dark, especially the lighthouse. I did a couple of things and came up with this:



1. I used the overlay technique described in [thread]64165[/thread] to lighten the lighthouse without blowing out the sky.
2. I used curves in Luminosity mode to add a bit more contrast, and to set light and dark points.

Sunbum

I agree John, the lighhouse could be a bit lighter, though I wouldn't expect to see the bee hives under the eves at that time of day. Since I have all segments of the picure in layers I can simply lighten each as needed.

Cheers,
Ty

jjbong

Sunbum wrote:

I agree John, the lighhouse could be a bit lighter, though I wouldn't expect to see the bee hives under the eves at that time of day. Since I have all segments of the picure in layers I can simply lighten each as needed.

Cheers,
Ty

With any technique in PS, you can always dial it to taste. You can do this by layer, of course.

Some go for overdoing an effect, and then just dialing back opacity to taste.

I was pretty sure you wouldn't like what I came up with, but would want something between yours and mine.

Wachel

Sunbum wrote:

I agree John, the lighhouse could be a bit lighter, though I wouldn't expect to see the bee hives under the eves at that time of day. Since I have all segments of the picure in layers I can simply lighten each as needed.

Cheers,
Ty

Hijack for a second...those are bird nests and not bee hives. Nothing to do with the thread but I wanted to point it out....

Back to the regularly scheduled program.