in a recent video I explained how to turn a daytime scene into a nighttime scene using Adobe
Lightroom a lot of people who saw the video asked how to do the same thing using Affinity photo so
in this video I'll show you the same thing but focus on making the lights glow as if it's night
I'll start with the raw file open in the Affinity photo develop Persona I'll then use the exposure
slider in the basic panel to darken the image by moving it to the left what I'm trying to do
is move the histogram so that it's compressed on the left side next reduce the temperature slider
to around 400 Kelvin to give the light a cool feel I'll also reduce the tint slider to about
-10 to prevent the image from having a pink tint this gives a base image that no looks like it was
shot at night the only problem is that the lights aren't glowing which is what we now need to fix
unfortunately this isn't quite as simple as it was in Lightroom and requires a two-step approach the
first part part of this is to add an overlay to the light we want to make glow to do this I'll add
a gradient overlay to the area in the overlays tab after clicking on the overlay tool I can set the
type of gradient to Elliptical I can then position my mouse near to the neon sign and then click and
drag to draw the overlay because I've picked the elliptical gradient I can set the width and height
separately using these two controls after that I'll click and drag the center line to change
the feather on the gradient and add the gradient in position I can go to the basic Tab and increase
the exposure after you've done this you may find that you want to reposition the gradient on the
image next I can increase the white balance and tint controls this makes the area appear warmer
than the surrounding image as if lights falling onto it that's the first step complete but the
effect doesn't look very convincing at the moment to give the appearance of a strong light we'll
need to go to the photo Persona next but before we do that I just need to click on The View tool at
the top of the toolbar this allows me to set the output options to produce a raw layer with the
raw data embedded now I can click the develop button and return to the photo persona for the
next stage of editing here I'm going to add a new brightness and contrast adjustment layer to the
image in the dialog I'll increase the brightness to around 70 percent and the contrast to around
20. the adjustments now affecting the entire image but we don't want that to fix it we need to add
an empty mask to hide the layer if I click the mascara icon at the bottom of the layer Studio
panel I can choose to add an empty mask this creates a mask filled with black which hides
the entire image what I need to do next is click and drag the mask with my mouse dropping it onto
the brightness and contrast layer it then hides the effects of only that layer in the image I can
now use a paintbrush tool to paint with white onto the mask where I want the light to appear
paint I'm using an opacity of 50 a low flow setting of about five percent and a hardness of
zero percent this gives me a soft brush so that I can build up the light to make a convincing
adjustment but before I start painting I'm just going to change the blend mode for the brightness
and contrast layer to be hard light this will create a more realistic effect in the areas where
I paint the light now I can click on the mask in the layer Studio panel to ensure that it's
selected then paint over the areas around the sign where I want the effect to appear after painting
in the effect I can re-select the layer to adjust the settings and I can also change the opacity of
the layer to adjust the strength of the effect the next adjustment is to add a white balance layer
I'll use this to set the white balance and tint slider to around 40 percent each as before this
affects the entire image so I'll add a new empty mask from the layer Studio panel I can then drag
and drop it it onto the white balance adjustment to hide that layer now I can click the mask layer
to select it and then use the brush tool again to paint in the effects around the neon sign when the
mask is complete I can adjust the white balance settings further if I need to finally I'll select
both layers and add them to a new group if I turn off the group you can see the effect of
the layers and how they're making the light glow now let's repeat the process but this time making
the light in the upstairs window glow first I'll take the image back into the develop Persona by
double clicking the raw layer I can then click the overlays tab where I'll add a new gradient overlay
I'll use this to draw another elliptical gradient but on the light bulb in the window I can then
adjust the shape of the gradient and the feather so that it fits the window now in the basic panel
I can increase the exposure followed by the temperature slider in the white box section all
that I'm trying to do is make it appear that there's a faint glow around the light in the
upstairs window that will be enough to enhance with the other adjustments in the photo Persona
now I can click the develop button back in the photo Persona I'll add a new export adjustment
layer last time I used a brightness and contrast layer but you can create the same effect with an
exposure layer I'll increase the exposure slider to make the light bright in the window I'll also
change the blend mode of the layer to hard light now I can click on the mask icon and add a new
empty mask to the image as before I'll click and drag the mask with my mouse to drop it onto the
exposure layer hiding that layer I can then paint over the window where I want to create
a light effect when that's complete I'll add a new white balance layer so that I can warm the
light I just need to increase the white balance slider to around 60 which gives the appearance of
a yellow globbing light now I can add the empty mask to the image using the masking icon then
click and drag the max dropping it onto the white balance adjustment layer when that's in position
I can paint on the mask with white to reveal the adjustments in that area let's select both layers
and group them if I turn the group off and then on you can see how it makes the light appear to
Glow now for a couple of tips to improve the effect double-click the raw layer to open it
in the photo Persona again in the overlays panel I can select the gradient overlays and
use the opacity setting to refine the strength of the glow we can also continue to adjust the
color temperature of the overlay as well as the saturation and exposure this helps to create a
more realistic effect and the entire process is non-destructive whilst this is more complicated
than my original Lightroom video it provides more control if you haven't seen my Lightroom
video it's worth watching that next to compare the process and the results 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