Night Photo Filter Technique in Photoshop

Photography Tips  •  Photoshop Tutorials

Before Changes

After Changes

This tutorial is to help you learn how to change the emotion of a night photo by simply applying a photo filter that changes the general color of the lights.  This is a pretty simple technique that many professional photographers use, and nobody guesses that the original photograph looked different.  Ok, once you have your picture open in photoshop:

1. To add the filter, go to Image>Adjustments>Photo Filter.

2. To Use a Magenta tint as I did above, Change the Filter to Magenta and increase the Density to somewhere around 51.  Also make that the checkbox that says Preserve Luminosity is checked.

3. Another good filter to use for a night photo (instead of Magenta) is a Blue Photo Filter.  For the example on the left I used the Blue color with a density of 60.

4. And one more good filter for night photos is the Yellow Photo Filter.  For the Example on the left I used the Yellow color with a density of 61.

Of course I’m sure that there are other color filters that can enhance night photos like the filters demonstrated, just experiment for yourself with this technique and you may find another one that you like even better.  For different photos, the process and amount of adjustment won’t be exactly the same.