in this tutorial I'll show you how to create stunning dark sky black and white photos where
the sky and buildings are black except for small patches of light most of these are done
with painstaking editing in Photoshop but you can easily create this effect in Lightroom with
a little bit of thought the image I'm using is of the Catholic cathedral in Liverpool shot on
a sunny day you can even see the Shadows on the building from the sun which is top left
but outer frame to start we'll select the sky so we can turn it to Black to do this
click the masking icon in the toolbar below the histogram now we can select the sky option which
selects the sky in the image this produces a good selection except for a small area of sky
in the lower left of the frame we don't need to worry about this though for reasons that you'll
see later no we can darken the Sky by dragging the exposure slider to the far left at this point the
sky isn't quite black enough and we can still see some of the clouds one way of fixing this
is by moving the amount slider to the right to strengthen the adjustment alternatively we can
duplicate The Mask by clicking the menu icon in The Mask panel and then selecting the duplicate
option now I can use the exposure slider on the duplicate mask to darken the sky even further now
we have a black Sky let's return to the global adjustments by clicking the edit icon in the
toolbar at the top of the basics panel click the black and white option which converts the image
to black and white then come down to the black and white panel where you can adjust the color
response sliders these are what control how dark or lighter color is when it's converted to black
and white usually I suggest testing each of these sliders by moving them left and right but in this
case I did it earlier and I know that I only need to use the blue slider by moving it left I
can darken the blues which emphasizes the shadows and gives the feeling of light coming from the top
left of the frame let's go back to the masking now so we can choose to darken the building to
select the building all we need is the inverse of the sky mask click the menu to the right of one of
the sky selections then choose the duplicate and invert option this produces a new mask selecting
the building we can then move the exposure slider left until the histogram is compressed on the far
left and the image appears dark it's then time to add some of the light patches to the building
using the radial gradient click the create new mask icon and then select the radial gradient
from the options to draw the gradient click on the image where you want to position the center
and then drag whilst holding down the mouse button I can then click and drag the handles
to resize and rotate it the feather slider is also extremely useful for softening and controlling the
effect with the radial gradient in place I'll increase the exposure slider to lighten the
area but I'm also going to increase the contrast and Clarity sliders these can help to make the
effect look more realistic now let's add another radial gradient but to the top of the Cathedral
on the left side once that's in position I'll increase the exposure contrast and clarity as
I did before but with this gradient I'll also increase the white slider to help make the
effect look more intense by creating highlights the black and white effect is now looking quite
good on this image but we can still improve the lower edges of the building to darken them to do
this we can use a linear gradient to select the area first click the add mask icon in The Masks
panel and then choose the linear gradient from the options like with a radial gradient you click and
drag using the mouse to draw it notice that I'm creating a large feathered gradient to produce a
softer Shadow effect I can then move the exposure slider to the left to darken the selection now
I'll repeat this but drawing the gradient to the bottom left of the frame notice that I'm
aligning the gradient with the existing Shadows on the building to help make it look more realistic
then I'll move the exposure slider to the left to darken the area now you may want to leave the
image at this point but it could look good if we had a bright light in the top left of the frame
to create this we can add a large soft radial gradient then if we drag the exposure slider
to the right it begins to lighten the area but only slightly initially now add a second radial
gradient this time with more of an oval shape as with the other radial gradient move the exposure
slider to the right which produces a bright flare effect we can then adjust the feather slider on
both gradients to control the effect as well as using the amount slider the overall transformation
is now quite convincing and a lot quicker than using Photoshop but a dark sky black and white
image isn't the only thing we can do using this technique in this next video I demonstrate how
to use the same techniques to turn a daytime photo into an atmospheric nighttime scene it's
a great one to watch next even if you might have seen it before thanks for watching today
and if you haven't done so already don't forget to subscribe I'll see you soon for another video