Converting Day into Night

This is the finished product from this tutorial, a night picture. I'm going to show step by step how to do it.

Click to enlarge

First, open your picture, I used this one.

Click to enlarge

The first and main thing is to separate the sky from the ground. So, using the quick mask (press Q) paint the sky selection, then press Q again to get it. Now go to select > inverse and you have the selection!

You can also use the Magic Wand Tool (W) to get the selection (clicking on the sky)

quick mask on the tool box

sky painted in the quick mask mode

Now with select > inverse again, you'll have the ground selection. Save both selections (Select > Save Selection).

With the sky selection appearing, go to layer > new adjustment layer > brightness and contrast

Now ctrl+c and ctrl+v (with the sky selection appearing and at the image layer). Set this copy of the sky as multiply.

Your image is looking like this now:

Now with the ground selection appearing (Select > Load Selection, choose on Channel the name you put for it when you saved) go to Image > Adjust > Brightness/Contrast

The problem now is that the castle is too dark, and you don't want a picture where you can't see anything.

Still with the ground selection appearing, go to Filter > Render > Lens Flare

To make this step, it's best to enlarge you canvas size a little bit (Image > Canvas Size).

Apply another lens flare on the other side, realize that the lens cannot appear on the picture, or it may look weird, only the light that they produce appears on the picture.

We are done!

Hover over to see "before" image.

I hope that you enjoyed this tutorial.