Change the Time of Day with Photoshop

Photography Tips  •  Photoshop Tutorials

In this tutorial, we will combine these two photos:

And create this photo:

This tutorial is to help you learn how to change the time of day by combining a daytime picture with the picture of a sunset.  To combine the two photos we will use the Match Color Option in Photoshop.  I have used this technique many times when I wished I had taken a certain picture later in the day.  Ok, Once you have a daytime picture and a sunset picture open in photoshop:

1. With the daytime photo selected, go to the Match Colors Option(Image>Adjustments>Match Color).

2. Inside the Match Color Dialog Box first of all where it says “Source” click the drop down menu and select the name of the sunset photo.  (In this example the sunset photo’s name was IMG_1374.JPG).

3. Then Adjust the Fade to where you like the amount of color matched.  For this example I set the Fade to 30.

4. Then Go ahead and Adjust the Luminance and Color Intensity to see if it makes any improvements to the photo you are working on.  (For my photo I found it best to have the Luminance set to 73 and the Color Intensity to 134).

5. Then click OK, and see if you like the result.

For different photos, the process and amount of adjustment won’t be exactly the same.  But you could also use this technique to change the color of the sky or sunset to the color arrangement from another photo.