- [Narrator] Hi, I'm Glyn Dewis, and in this video
I've got a really quick technique using gradients
for adding mood and atmosphere into your pictures.
(camera shutter clicking)
Okay, so the last time you'd have seen this picture
would've been in episode 91,
where I showed you how to add these shadows
onto the back wall, which is kinda like a window frame
as light's being cast through it.
You can see from the original picture,
this certainly wasn't there, and then,
you can see that we've got them on that back wall.
So if you haven't seen the video,
definitely go and check out episode 91.
In this video, I wanna show another way
that we can enhance the mood and atmosphere
in our pictures, and that's using colour.
So what I want you to do then is kind of imagine
with me that, in this particular picture
that you can see here, just off to the right hand side,
just outside of view, there is either a candle,
a room light, a lamp, or maybe even a light outside,
a streetlight, and light's coming in from that,
into the room, so it's warming it up
on the right hand side, but as it comes further
into the room it gets cooler further, further
across to the left hand side.
Now, we're gonna do that really quickly
just using one adjustment layer, that's a gradient,
or using one layer, rather, and that's a gradient.
So the way we do that is this:
we go to the layer menu, and we're gonna choose
New Fill Layer and Gradient.
Now there's a few little things to click on here,
but first thing we need to do is name it.
So just call it 'light,' and then click 'OK.'
Now when we do that, we get the gradient fill
dialogue properties comes up here.
And what we're gonna do is click
on the very very top bar here,
the gradient that we're being given by default,
and when we click on that, it opens up the gradient editor.
And this is where we can start now to choose
the look that we want to actually give this picture.
To be honest with you, it doesn't really matter
what gradient we choose here because we are
going to change it in just a little bit anyway.
But the best one to use for this particular effect
is the fifth on along, and if I have my cursor over it,
it'll probably say violet and orange.
Never does it when you want it to.
There you go, violet and orange.
And if I just zoom in for you,
you can see it's the fifth one along, just here.
We're gonna use that one.
So I'm just gonna click on that,
and when I do you can see now, we get that violet
to orange gradient going from top to bottom
on top of our picture.
Now the violet, I'm sorry, the orange I'm kinda liking,
that's gonna be nice, a good one to fake
the look of the light,
but this violet at the bottom doesn't really work.
That's needs to be cooler.
Now the way we can change the colour of each of these
kind of parts of the gradient
in the gradient editor, at the bottom, here,
you can actually see the gradient going from left to right,
we're gonna click on the bottom left hand stop here,
and that's the one that's defining the colour of violet.
When I click on that it's gonna bring up the colour
in the bottom here, I'll just zoom in to show you,
you can see now it's put the colour in there for me.
So if I now click on the colour, it then
brings up the colour picker.
And this is where I can sort of now choose
what I want to change this violet to,
and I want it to be a little bit more blue.
Now as I drag down here on the str-
which is like the stretched out colour wheel here,
you can see, in real time, the colour that I'm choosing.
Not just in the little square here,
but also on top of our gradient on our picture
over on the right hand side.
So you can see it in real time there.
Now somewhere roundabout there is looking good.
Yeah, kinda like there, maybe just a little bit lighter.
There's good.
And then we click 'OK.'
Well then click 'OK' on the gradient editor
to close that down cause I'm quite happy
with the colours we've got now.
But then, in the gradient fill,
the small property dialogue box here,
what we can do is use this angle disc.
And we can choose which direction
we want that light to be coming in from.
Now I said I wanted it to be the streetlight,
or a candle, or a lamp coming in from the right hand side,
going across our room where it's gonna go
kinda like a cool blue.
So maybe at this angle here will kinda work.
You can see, again, if I zoom in, I've just
kinda got it so the angle points is going off
to the right hand side there,
something like that should be good.
It doesn't matter to be exact here,
because you can always come back later on
and change this, which a great thing about it.
Now while you've chosen the gradient angle there,
you can also come into the picture, click down
and drag left and right to move the gradient
to decide how much of the orange you want in there,
or how much of the blue you want in there.
So it's a really nice way of being able to control it.
Now we'll leave it somewhere roundabout there just for now.
Click 'OK' to go back to our normal
layers panel, but obviously now we want to see our picture.
So all we're gonna do is change the blender mode
of this new gradient here from normal to maybe
overlay would be one to choose from.
You could also choose soft light,
but that actually seems to make it a little
bit more saturated, a little bit more red,
which isn't really the kinda colour I want to go for.
So I'm gonna leave it at overlay, and I kinda like that.
Now we're at 100% opacity at the moment,
you might think that's a little bit too strong,
so you can obviously dial it down,
the great thing about it here, being on it's own layer.
Something like that is looking good.
So maybe around about 60%-ish could kinda work,
but you could be happy with it just there.
But if you wanted to make some changes to it now,
if we just double-click on the gradient
in the actual layers panel, it'll then bring up
the gradient fill, you could click on the gradient bar again
to bring up the gradient editor,
and you could click on the colours and all this kinda stuff
just here to open all these boxes again
if you wanted to change the colours.
But while we're in here let's just go to the gradient fill.
And I'm just gonna bring my cursor on top
of the picture now and drag it down
so we get a little bit more of that light
coming in from the right hand side.
But you can see how now I've got this warm light coming in,
it's then fading gradually fading off
just like the gradient starts to blend those lights
in together, and it gets cooler over on the left hand side.
So it certainly does add quite a bit more atmosphere
into the picture, especially when it's got those shadows
on the back wall just there.
So it's a really quick technique, one that you'll
be able to use in a lot of your pictures there,
just to finesse the final look,
giving it the mood that you want.
And if you want to use the picture that I'm using
so you can do it as well, just subscribe
to my newsletter or my email group,
that'll then give you access to a page
on my website where you can download the files
that I use in my YouTube videos.
So then you'll be able to get on straight away
and start practising , definitely the best way
to learn this kind of stuff.
And also, if you haven't already,
make sure you click on the subscribe button.
Just support the channel by clicking
that subscribe button and I know that you're out there.
Also, if you could, and this is a real polite request here,
share the video, share this video with other people
that you know may be interested.
Or better still, share the link to the actual channel.
That's enough pleading for one week.
Thanks for tuning in, I'll see you next time.
(camera shutter clicking)