Add a sunset to any image

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robchenski, śr., 22/04/2009 - 01:18

Ever wished you'd been around at the end of the day to shoot a scene with the sun setting? Sick of all those wintery white skies? We show you how to do it in Photoshop without all that waiting around. You'll need a copy of Photoshop (any version above 3.0) or similar image editing application, and you'll need some experience of using layers and selection tools – this one isn't for absolute beginners.

Level: intermediate.

Step 1

Start by opening the image you want to add the sunset to. Since the main subject of the final picture will be a silhouette you need to choose pictures with strong, recognisable shapes – this shot of Stonehenge is ideal. Click on the thumbnail above to download a full size JPEG.

Step 2

We need to make some space for the new sky – increase the vertical canvas size (Image>Canvas Size) – I've roughly doubled it in this instance. Set the anchor (where the original picture will sit on the new canvas) to the bottom centre.

Step 3

Now to get rid of the original sky. To do this you need to select the sky in its entirety. How you do this will depend on the nature of the sky. As this one is pretty featureless we can either use the Magic Wand and the Shift key to add areas, or – as here – use Photoshop's Color Range command (Select>Color Range). Click in the sky area and increase the fuzziness until the whole sky is selected.

Step 4

Double click on the Background layer (it should be the only one in the Layers palette) to promote it to a normal editable layer. With the selection made in step 3 still active, hold down the Alt key and click on the 'Add Layer Mask' icon at the bottom of the Layers palette. Holding down the Alt key creates a mask that hides the selection (clicking the icon alone creates a 'reveal selection' mask).

Step 5

Click on the Layer Mask thumbnail and zoom in to the image to clean up the cut-out created by the mask. Remember, black paint extends the mask (and hides more of the image), white paint reveals more of the image.

Step 6

I don't want to make a completely black silhouette – I want some of the shape and texture of the stones to be visible. I'm going to use Hue/Saturation controls to do this, via an adjustment layer (so I can go back later and tweak the settings). Choose Layer>New Adjustment Layer>Hue/Saturation. When the new layer dialog appears tick the Group with Previous Layer option – this will restrict the colour changes to the visible pixels in this layer – not those in the new sky we're about to drop in below it.

Step 7

Click on the Colourize button and move the hue to around 29 – a warm sunset colour. Reduce the saturation to around 30 and the lightness to somewhere between -60 and -70.

Step 8

Finally, open your sunset image – click on the thumbnail above and you can download this one.

Step 9

Use the Move tool to drag it onto your picture. Move it to the bottom of the layer stack in the Layers palette and resize it to fit using the Edit>Free Transform command. The final result is shown at the top of the page (click on it to see it full size).