How to edit DAY into NIGHT using Lightroom MASKS & CURVES

had to turn a daytime Street Scene into an evening Twilight image using Lightroom masks and curves let's dive straight in so we're going to begin by underexposing the image all the way to minus5 stops and we're going to be performing a series of masks to achieve this effect we'll start with a linear gradient dragging from the bottom all the way to the top and we need to intersect that mask with the sky then invert the mask so everything but the sky is selected so let's increase the exposure by a

round and 2.5 stops whites can come all the way up now let's use the power of this new curve feature to bring up the exposure even further and because we created this mask as a linear gradient the effect is more prominent at the bottom of the image getting darker towards the night sky which is what we want let's create another mask by selecting sky and using that curve feature again we can reduce the exposure whites can reduce as well and you know this image does look a little strange right now

but the scene is going to come to life with the next couple of masks because this is going to essentially be a sunset Twilight scene we need to change the white balance with some warmer tones tint can come up to plus 25 let's bring up the global whites for better overall contrast and a touch of Vibrance in those warm tones the next thing we're going to tackle is the Horizon behind those buildings to create that beautiful sunset so let's create a new mask this time being a radial gradient and I'l

l place it across the Horizon part of the image quite wide is going to be better and let's intersect that mask with the sky once again and you can see exactly where this effect is going to be using the red overlay the exposure can be restored highlights down a touch and let's add those gorgeous warm tones using the temperature and tint sliders Hue can be moved slightly into the Reds and let's just see a quick before and after that's looking good perhaps more saturation and using those fabulous c

urves on the red Channel I'll just push those Reds even further this is really starting to look like an evening scene now but you'll notice the top of the flat iron is missing some detail so let's fix that let's create another radial mask and drag from the top just covering the right side the left side can remain in the shadows this time let's intersect the mask with the subject which of course is the building and that's done an amazing job of selection now we can increase the exposure to match

the lower portion of the building whites can come up and blacks down a touch and finally match the color using those warm tones again so let's see it before and after much better let's bring some Focus to the car in the four grand this time I'll use the object selection to create a mask just cover the car and Lightroom does a very decent job as as you can see and a couple of adjustments to add some warmth using the temperature slider and how about some clarity at plus 25 quick before and after l

ooking good now you'll notice there are some red brake lights and green traffic lights in the image so let's enhance those using the saturation to around plus 50 and luminance all the way up to 100 on both it's subtle but what I'm going to do now is add some creative flare to those lights basically to illuminate them heading up to masks and Radial once again let's draw a small circle to cover the brake lights and using my favorite curve tool and that red Channel again I'll push the Reds to reall

y saturate them and using the global curve here's the trick to really illuminate those lights how good is that now all we have to do is right click and duplicate The Mask then reposition over all of the other brake lights making sure to reduce the size size to match the light source now here's a little trick for those green traffic lights simply take that red Channel and drag the point into those Aqua greens and boom nice green glowing traffic lights now we do have a lot of masks going on here b

ut that's absolutely fine there is another creative effect that I'd like to add and that's breake light Reflections on the road using an oblong radial filter just place that on the road there looks about right and using Subtract with the brush tool simply remove the top portion of the Mask now we can add a little bit of exposure some warm color temperature tint makes them nice and red and we can twig the Hue slider and then a small boost in the saturation now we can duplicate the rest and within

5 minutes or so we've changed this New York York street scene from Bright daylight to an entirely different time of the evening using mask work and mostly the power of Curves now the use of Curves within a mask is something that is relatively new and in my opinion a real game Cher for users of Lightroom I'm just hoping that eventually we'll be able to manipulate and adjust individual color mixer sliders within a mask that would be some incredible feature anyway thanks for watching please do me

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