How to Create a Sunset Effect in Photoshop - Example: Irish Sunset | Photoshop Tutorial
How to Create a Sunset Effect in Photoshop | Photoshop Tutorial • How to Create a Sunset Effect in Phot...
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Part One - Creating the Sun in Photoshop (2:20 min)
This part is by far the most simple one. I started out by creating a copy of my background layer (CMD+J), after which I went to Filter-Render-Lighting Effects. There is a choice to make between three kinds of light sources, where I went for the Point one. I made it yellow and placed it just below the horizon. Once I was happy with the placing, I created a layer mask and used a black brush to hide the yellow effect from areas where I did not think it looks great, so especially the foreground.
Part Two - Adding Colors to the Sky (4:40 min)
The next part was to add some nicer colors to the sky itself, as the actual sky had nothing but gray in it. I used a proven-to-work three step system, and each step follows the same principle. The first step is the yellow itself that comes from the layer with the sun, so this is done already!
First, I start out by creating a new layer (CMD+Alt+Shift+N), for which I change the Blending Mode to "Color". I then switch to my gradient tool (G on the keyboard) and select a nice red. I dragged from top to bottom and then used a layer mask to also hide the red from certain areas of the image. I repeated the exact same procedure for my last color that I usually use - orange.
Part Three - Darken the Image in Photoshop (8:00 min)
The next step was to darken the image - in the end, it is supposed to be a sunset photo! There are many ways of doing this, but I went for a simple curve adjustment layer in this case where I dragged the curve down until I was happy with how the sky looked. This also intensified the colors a lot and the whole thing looked way better right away. In cases where the image became a little over saturated, I just used a simple Hue/Saturation adjustment layer to reduce the saturation in these areas. Now, from this point onwards I went back very often to the layers that had the colors on them, to make sure, I get a nice balance between them in the sky. This takes some time usually and it is best practice to, every now and again, go away from the computer to double check later when working with colors. In this tutorial, I did not take the time to do so, but you get the idea :)
Part Four - How to Dodge and Burn in Photoshop (13:50 min)
The stones in the foreground were ll equally lit, which is not really great when simulating a sunset. Therefore, I made it my mission to give them a little bit of a better look. To do so, I used a technique called dodging and burning, that essentially lightens and darkens certain areas of an image. There are several ways to do so, but the one I chose works like this:
I created a new layer and filled the layer with 50% gray (Shift+Backspace). I then changed the blending mode from normal to overlay. Here is the cool thing - using a white and black brush, I can either lighten or darken things now! Awesome, right? There are also dodge and burn tools within Photoshop, they work great as well - it is just personal preference. This might take a while, but selectively darkening and lightening the stones made all the difference to the image I believe.
Part Five - Adding a Soft Focus to the Image (25:00 min)
The last major step was to add some soft focus to the image. This can be done manually, but there is also the plugin from the Nik collection (it is free!) that does this. I recommend downloading this plugin - no harm in free stuff that saves some time!
Remember, shortcuts make your life easier and can speed up your processing a lot!
B for the brush
X to change between background and foreground colors
CMD+I to invert anything
CMD+J to duplicate a layer or a selection
CMD+Alt+Shift+N to get a new layer
CMD+Alt+Shift+E to get a stamp visible
G for the gradient tool
On a Windows PC, just replace the CMD with Ctrl.
Intro music from Kevin MacLeod (Prelude and Action)
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