So, you know how to take photos of fireworks, but what can you do with them now? Maybe you have a great composition of a city, with fireworks lighting the sky above, or maybe, like me, you just got a few shots of fireworks alone in an empty sky.
In this tutorial, you will learn how easy it is to blend these fireworks into your landscape and cityscape photos, so that you can transform an image from something like this:
To this:
This tutorial will cover the basics of blending objects into your photos. But please remember that the goal of learning techniques like this one is not only so you can blend fireworks into your photos, but more generally so that you become comfortable with using certain tools and workflows in a way that you perhaps haven’t before. This will give you the skills and experience to tackle any post-processing roadblocks you hit in the future. If you want to see what’s possible beyond the basic blending of objects, there are also many articles that delve deeper into other types of blending, from blending multiple exposures of cityscapes, to creating realistic HDRs, and blending any landscape photos.
What You Need:
- One photo with plenty of empty sky.
- One (or more) photos of fireworks.
If you want to follow along with this tutorial, you can download the background photo plus the fireworks here.
The complete workflow is also in this video, if you would rather watch it:
Table of Contents
1. Positioning Your Fireworks
You can put the fireworks anywhere you like in your photo, although it helps to put them in the sky. Don’t worry if there are buildings or other objects partially blocking the sky. In fact, it will seem more natural to have the fireworks partially obscured like this.
First, you should open your base landscape or cityscape photo into Photoshop, and add the fireworks photos as layers on top, by dragging them into the same workspace as the base layer. They will then sit on top of your base photo as layers.
Select each fireworks layer individually, and use the ‘Move’ tool to position them somewhere in the sky.
Then, use the “Free Transform” tool (Edit -> Free Transform) to resize your fireworks photos until they seem to fit naturally into the perspective of your photo.
2. Blending the Fireworks Into the Sky
Now that you have the fireworks in position, all that is left to do is to blend them naturally into your base photo. But not all fireworks photos are created equal. The absolute easiest way to blend photos is to use blending modes. These are found in the top-left of the layers palette. If you have a photo with a totally black background, you can probably get away this. Otherwise, you might need to use layer masks.
Try changing the blending mode for your firework layer. ‘Screen’ usually works the best, as this mode keeps the lightest bits of your photo, and discards the darkest parts. In this case, that means the firework itself should show through, and the sky should be lost.
If this doesn’t work because you have buildings or other objects in your fireworks photo, then add a layer mask and try painting out the offending object with a large, soft brush, set to black. In this photo, there is a rocket trail that is showing in front of the waterfront buildings in my base layer. Using a layer mask, you can paint this out. If you are not familiar with layer masking, then take a look at this article.
In the below screenshot, the area that has been painted out in the layer mask is highlighted in red. By painting over this area of the layer mask with a black brush, this part of the rocket trail will no longer show through, and will therefore not appear in front of the buildings.
If I remove the base layer for a moment, you can see how much has been painted out.
3. Placing Fireworks Behind Buildings
You can add more fireworks by repeating the workflow above, but eventually it is likely that you will hit a problem when you want to position one half-behind a building.
You could hand-draw a layer mask, as you did it step 2, zooming into 100% and carefully cutting out the building from the firework with a hard brush. But there is a much simpler method: the ‘Quick Selection’ tool.
First, ensure that your background layer is selected, then paint this tool into the sky near any buildings or other objects. This will cause the tool to make a selection that snaps to any obvious boundaries in the photo, like the boundary between building and sky. Then, with the selection made, you simply have to select your firework layer and click the add layer mask button. This automatically adds the selection as a layer mask, and the building will get cut out from the firework.
4. Adding Reflections
So far it’s looking pretty good, but there’s a problem: no reflections in the water. This is a simple problem to fix.
Start by duplicating your first fireworks layer (Layer -> Duplicate Layer).
Then, with this duplicate selected, open the ‘Free Transform’ tool once again (Edit -> Free Transform), right-click within the boundaries of the layer, and select Flip Vertical from the popup menu.
Now, re-position this duplicate layer into the water, somewhere below the firework. You might want to stretch it a little to match the perspective of your photo, or change the positioning, so it looks more natural. Hit enter or the tick box on the top bar to accept your transformation.
The final part left is to match the texture and blur of the reflection to the water. If you zoom in to 100%, you can see that the reflection obviously doesn’t fit in.
To fox this, you can go to Filter -> Blur -> Gaussian Blur.
Making sure preview is checked, move the radius within the Gaussian Blur filter until the reflection seems to naturally blend into the water, then hit ok.
Repeat this process with each firework layer in turn to add all the reflections. If you have used layer masks, particularly to place the fireworks behind buildings or other objects, you will probably have to re-do these. But it’s easy enough to do them again by hand, or through using the ‘Quick Selection’ tool as in step 3.
Final Thoughts
With a few minutes of work, you can use these techniques to add fireworks or any similar object to your photos.
Hopefully, this tutorial has given you some ideas of how you can combine blending modes, layer masks and filters to modify your photos. Of course, you don’t have to use these techniques for blending fireworks, as there are many other potential applications. The use of understanding techniques like these, and how they combine, is that you then have a greater repertoire of tips and tricks that you can use to post-process your photos, in the future. The more techniques you understand, the more chance you have of creating photos that you are proud to exhibit. My teaching philosophy is based around giving you these techniques, and showing you how to use them for your own purposes. If you would like to see more of my tutorials, you can find them here.
This guest post was submitted by Tim Daniels. To see more of his work, please visit his website.
Personally I’d rather add Jimmy Barnes to empty skies.
This is not photography.
Its called artistic license.
Photography is the art of painting with light.
Everyone should respect each others work.
Thanks Tim Daniels
Shocked to see how (what I thought it was) a professional and artistic photography site devotes and article to this faked, cheap, horrible nonsense.
You should be ashamed!!!!
Very low.
Carlos, Tim is teaching how to use the particular tools in Photoshop to blend different images together. It is useful to know how to do it in my opinion, but it is up to each individual to decide whether they want to do it or not. Personally, I don’t use such techniques in my photography, but if someone wants to create a composite and label it as such, that’s their decision…
Faked? Like posting a comment without your full name?
Horrible? Like your spelling?
The only person who should be ashamed is you, for being unkind to someone who put a lot of time and effort into helping others. He taught people some skills. You taught people that you are unkind. Both are important lessons to learn.
People are different and like different things. If it is not something you care to learn, then don’t learn it. Many people are eager to learn this. You don’t speak for them. There is no shame in liking something you don’t. You’re not God.
This is digital painting. Photography involves a scene, a camera and a few clues. This ranks up there with the “Chimping” article.
WoW . . . That’ll teach you to try something new!
Give the guy a break, he’s trying to share his knowledge and experience with us.
Who knows when some of these skills may come in handy on a “pure” photograph?
Not a fan of faked photos. This isn’t enhancement of what’s already the scene. It’s a work of fiction. I’m tired of wondering what’s real in digital photos and what’s fake.
Thinking about what I wrote here yesterday. Probably comes across a bit harsh.
Tim – I checked out your webpage. You have some beautiful, vivid photos. Obviously you’re a skilled photographer. But the problem that photos like this raise for me – and clearly others on this site – is that the call into question what’s real and what isn’t. That’s really frustrating as a viewer. Especially in an era when digital reality is becoming harder than even to discern from real life.
We delineate books by fact vs. fiction. Knowing which is which is considered universally important. And when an author or film-maker blurs reality in a manner that leads readers/viewers to wonder what’s fact and what’s fiction they get criticized. Rightly so, I’d say.
You’re also skilled with digital editing. So you have the ability to fool your audience. Whether you intend to or not. When I look at your webpage, I now wonder what else is manufactured. The birds in the sky? The streak of car lights in the city scape? To me, that sort of uncertainty cheapens the experience.
If I’m at an art walk and I buy your photo thinking it’s real, and put it on my wall, and show it off to guests, I can imagine that one of them may say, “Hey, I’ve been there. I used to live there. And I can tell you there has NEVER been a fireworks display there.” Guess what? I’m gonna want my money back.
So do whatever form of art you like. Just be clear about what it is. Thank you.
The reality (pun intended) is photography isn’ta good representation of reality anyway. What you choose to include in a scene, what focal length, light modifiers, polarizers, etc all alter reality to some extent. Add in those people who move branches, twigs, trash, out of the way because it’s distracting. Then factor in those people who remove power lines in post or modify highlight/shadow colors….
The list goes on. Photography is a spectrum of reality not a hard line between what is and what it isn’t “real” to a scene.
Adding something that’s not there is a pretty major alteration. Removing something that is there is also a major alteration. Each presents a manufactured scene.
There is a clear line between adding or subtracting an actual thing(s) and post-processing the thing(s) that are in the original photograph. There are plenty of shades of gray in life. This distinction’s pretty black and white.
But MORE IMPORTANT is understanding whether a photo is manufactured in the first place. If it is, and it’s sold as such, and someone likes it, then maybe they’ll praise or buy it. That’s great!
But not letting the viewer/customer know isn’t very honest, is it. Especially if there’s a presumption that a scene is real, as would usually be the case.
It’s more a question of knowing what it is we’re looking at then whether it’s called photography/art or something else entirely. (BTW, I never said it wasn’t photography.)
I am disappointed in this article, and completely fabricated this type of image. Yes, I agree artistic images are valid at times, though of course should be stated as such. But agree this is a complete work of fiction. Shame on you for suggesting this
Just because you can does not mean you should.
Great article! And you’re right, it’s not photography, it’s ART. I’m so confused on why people have an issue with modifying an image to “enhance” it. Do you not change an image by the ISO, aperture, shutter speed, and lens type used? Is it a crime if you shoot in RAW and then modify the color temperature of the image. How about “oh my” modify the colors of an image. Do you think if Ansel Adams had access to the tools we have today he would not use them? He pushed the limits of the tools he used to get the type of image he had in his mind. That’s the point of using these tools!
I tend to agree with your comments. I think the line has to be clear between a single image that has been finessed, in your RAW file interpreting software, compared to using multiple images. The right thing to do is declare up front it is a *composite* image. No more detail needed. But whether you shoot a grid series to get more pixels of a scene, or focus stack to get greater DOF, or combine several unrelated images, it’s not comparable to what Ansel Adams did in the dark room. He pushed the tools he had (from a single piece of film), like we now have RAW file interpreting software to finesse the image we intended. There is a big difference.
Others have communicated their opinions on this article. I mostly share them.
That said, for the “digital artist” that is okay with this kind of fabrication, it should at least be done at a professional level – that is be believable. I’ve been to a host of fireworks shows in a wide variety of scenarios and they never shoot them off with this much light still present, because the sun is easily stronger than the little flashes of light from fireworks. So – if you are okay with these techniques, they have to be done believably, for it to be considered a good job.
As a guy who worked at a high end photo studio shooting a wide variety of things, international food product photography often required extra work, but it had to be believable, often requiring hours of work, not just a few simple layer modes and voila. Photoshop is an incredible toolbox, for those that want to explore its depths. But, for most photogs, a few *simple* tweaks in their RAW processing software is the extent of what is acceptable, as is the case for most photo contests – and “simple” means that – not correcting problems from poor shooting, as is often the case. Go to most fairs and you will see real subjects in colors you would never witness in person – only in overly tweaked images reflecting beyond real life contrast and saturation.
Have you ever noticed that those whom pontificate regarding their standards as photography purest have the crappiest images? Thanks for taking time and sharing your technique.
Easy comment to make. But it is highly unlikely you have seen the work of any one that has commented. The only work comments have been made on is those in this article.
In truth, the base image, while it may be pleasing to some is highly processed to begin with – way beyond what I would put my name on – but that is a matter of *preference*. I am not making a comment on whether it should be done or not. My main thought was – if you are going to do it – own it and do it well. In my opinion, the original image is so over processed to get the range of light in the sky AND the night lights – adding fireworks, for me, is way way over the top. That said – I readily acknowledge IT IS a matter of preference. That said, no need to take a cheap shot about images you have never seen – it weakens any point you are trying to make.
I’m afraid this excellent source of information for photographers has on this occasion fallen foul of honest photography with this “fantasy” article. Can we now return business as usual please!
Can you tell us how to move the pyramids (like National Geographic did…once)?
It’s art.
Doing this kind of compositing is real work and to do well requires a lot of technical understanding, as well as Photoshop skills. Where most fail, on the technical side, is considering key things that separate images shot separately – things like angle and temp of the light – these can be adjusted, with a lot of work, but are a factor many don’t pay attention to. Another factor is ISO and DOF. If one element is much grainier, then it is a problem and if one element is sharper/softer than the level it will be composited into, it is a mismatch. While many may not be able to articulate these mismatches, most know something isn’t right in the image. The brain knows how things should be – having the skill to discern the incorrect details is half way to compositing well. It is a ton of work – even how the composited edges blend from one to another must match – most people don’t pay attention to this and so the edges announce something has been added. It is tedious work to do well.
When I was working at a high end studio, I had a garden (at home) and that particular year our broccoli was especially prolific. I had my wife snap a shot of me holding one really large head of broccoli and it reached nearly across my whole chest. When I showed the guys in the studio the image, they were sure it was faked. I assured them it was not. The next day I brought in an image of me pushing a wheel barrow, with a single head of broccoli in it. Now, we all had a good laugh, from an image that seemed to come from Ripley’s Believe It or Not. While the image quality was fine, no one was accepting it as truth.
I think the negative comments are a bit harsh. This will be a good article to learn layering and techniques to add/remove other elements in landscape images, for example. Whilst I’m unlikely to add fireworks to images, I can see the principles being demonstrated and this has been helpful! Stop bickering, children, and allow yourselves to maturely see beyond the obvious and learn to apply the principles to other images!
I agree that this is not photography. You are misleading the viewer that there were fireworks in the original real life scene. If you present it as a photo, the viewer assumes that this really existed in one composition. You are lying to the viewer. You are discrediting other photographers that actually have the skill to take photos of real scenes that have buildings and fireworks in them. Obviously, you don’t have that skill and have to result in cheating. I didn’t think PL would invite people to write articles that are cheaters.
Thank you for sharing this very helpful skill with us.
I was looking to add some fun to some of my cityscape photos. This will come handy.
For all those complaining that this is not photography. The lines between photography and art are very blurred. If this is not to your liking thats understandable. But saying this should not be here is not right. Because digital art and photography is hardly different disciplines these days. Actually many of my clients love when I add a fairy wing to their kid daughter’s photos.
There is an issue here of rudeness to a guest poster. I’ve noticed that commenters are seldom rude to Nasim and Spencer, but consider guest posters fair game. They then go at it and shoot the person down mercilessly. Guest posters take time and effort to put something up that they think people will like. Imagine their surprise when they encounter comments like some of the ones above. Surely there are kinder ways to let somebody know that you don’t agree with what they are presenting. Sometimes skill is an issue. Is it really necessary to tell them that their work isn’t very good? Just whom does that help? Are you punishing them for daring to write an essay for PL when they are not the best of the best? But even then there are kind ways of saying so, though I notice that the harshest critics never put their work up for anyone to see and compare. But often the comments are downright cruel, and to me that is what is really shameful. It is no surprise to me that we seldom see work from other contributors and guest posters anymore. Why would anybody want to put themselves through this?
Since the picture was taken at Pisa in Tuscany, if anybody wants to shot real fireworks there: www.visittuscany.com/en/to…i-in-pisa/
“It’s photoshopped”
“That’s NoT Photography”
Excuses used by people who cant take good photos or post process them properly, when they see other people publish nice photos.
As long you shot the photos yourself (you didn’t use stock photos), I don’t care how much you manipulate them. I really do appreciate posts like these. Some things aren’t possible to capture in a single exposure. If you capture a real fireworks display and you expose for the fireworks, the foreground is going to be over or underexposed depending on the lighting conditions. You have blend multiple exposures at least.
The page
photographylife.com/smart…a-industry
won’t let you add comments.
There is no CAPTCHA so it won’t let anything be posted….
Steve, sorry about that! I’m working on a fix and should be able to take care of that shortly.
Dear Guest-Poster-who-wrote-about-How-to-Easily-Add-Fireworks-to-Empty-Skies.
I’m really sorry to see how some readers have roasted you on the pit for not leaving empty skies empty and suggesting that they need to have fireworks in them. Perhaps, adding clouds might have gone down better.
My commiserations…
Best wishes in your Digital Art aspirations. Please realise that photography is a quite different subject.
So: removing unwanted objects from a picture is allowed, while adding something is a shame and you are not a photographer anymore… startrail pictures still belong to photography, and every photoshopped night sky to “enhance” the Milky Way is accepted and mark you as skilled photographer even if nobody usually sees a sky like that… I believe we should learn from any source available and play with our tools. No shame at all in doing that.
Beautiful lesson
This is my personal opinion and as I read many comments already saying the same. I just want to let you guys know I visit this site from time to time to read about photography. Not a big fan of this kind of alteration. And hope you limit this kind of article.
While I agree with the literal mean of photography personally think it also acts as a tool to record memory and history. My 2 cents. At the end your site your editorial policy.
Every so often in movies f.ex. moonset (likewise moonrise or sunrise and sunrise) is cheaply done only by playing moonrise in reverse order. It is disturbing due to a number of different kinds of unnatural details in that particular occasion – f.ex. diminishing crescent of moon sets only in daylight and so shouldn’t be used (in reverse play and thus wrong crescent with wrong morphology) as a setting moon on darkening evening sky.
I’m not taking side whether this painting is ok but what bothers is the wrong geometry in placing the reflections. In the demonstrated example imagine you are watching fireworks on that particular place where the reflection seems to come – and sure enough f.ex. the center of the rightmost explosion would be blocked by buildings and thus to the photography site there would not be any reflection either. One should more carefully consider the geometry!
You can easily check this issue by following heavenly body rising or setting behing a treeline or a mountain. Note how you can see the object while the reflection is still missing or has already gone – minutes-tens of minutes gap depending on your viewing geometry.
I’m a bit late for the party but I’d just like to leave my input. Yes, when I first saw the title I was a bit taken aback; it’s not the kind of thing I do in my post processing but just by reading I actually couldn’t help but think of a couple of instances in which I would have liked to know this. Honestly, knowing more about software we regularly use never hurts, even if you won’t ever apply it to your own images.
And in truth, while I wouldn’t use this kind of thing with photos I use on my usual channels, I wouldn’t mind doing it to show a friend or just to use as a wallpaper, with the full knowledge that it isn’t real but without it really mattering because it simply looks lovely. Just my 2 cents anyway. Not everyone appreciates these kinds of tutotials but I for one don’t mind them in the slightest. Cheers.
Great article. Thanks!
Why would I want to learn that? Its FAKE!
Good article. As long as we are not altering the photos for some sinister reasons, what is the issue in adding something? Like when our own Nasim took Solar Eclipse he put many suns in the same picture in a row to show the degradation. All new this is an enhancement and nobody cried foul there. Likewise lets take it in the right spirit. As long as we don’t alter the picture for criminal or tarnish someone I think it is okay. As long as it is just for fun or no evil agenda behind it, it is fine.
Else we must not enhance any pictures. Why add contrast or brighten images or adjust color? Just present the picture as it is
Kudos to the poor soul who got so much kicks. God bless all
I have always found LR to be refreshingly free from the unpleasantness that is evident over much of the rest of the internet, so some of the comments here are disappointing to me.
Anyone who imagines that this sort of image manipulation is a new phenomenon is incorrect. In the 1850s and 60s, photo-montage (cutting prints up that came from different originals, placing them together and re-photographing the result) was commonly used and thought by many to be highly artistic and revered.
From the first negatives on glass, then various types of film, it was standard practice to ‘retouch’, portraits, easing wrinkles and hair loss, usually using a soft graphite pencil directly onto the negative. Any commercial portrait photographer for most of the history of the photograph, would have gone out of business had they not done this!
As an advertising photographer, I often had parts of images altered by air-brushing, amongst many other tricks! This was standard practice. I have spent hours in darkrooms making composite images from different originals, including multi-printing several negatives onto one piece of paper using masks, mattes and various other techniques.
There is no truth in photography. There never has been. The ‘reality’ of the photojournalist image, for example, is only, at best, a part of the truth. If the photographer had framed a metre to the left, shot the image a second later, a different truth would have been told. There are many well known examples of this in the history of photojournalism and documentary photography. All of these variables and techniques have in the past been misused, sometimes in a benign or artistic way and at other times to tell malicious lies. Digital photography has just made the whole thing much easier, more accessible to (arguably) less serious photographers and sometimes more convincingly ‘real’ in the final image.
The images in the article are not particularly to my taste and I have little personal interest in this sort of manipulation. However, I can see that they are well executed and are certainly valid as a demonstration of the techniques involved. I do not understand why others feel they are entitled to be so insulting and would welcome a less petty and judgemental series of comments in future!
BRAVO
I saw this guy posting a bunch of spam on Reddit and nobody liked it there either.
I little more photography and a little less technique or how-to would be appreciated.
Wow. Not what I expected to see on this wonderful site. This article should be pulled.
Can someone please explain to me what is a “Pure” image? Wow, so many people think that they have the right to tell an artist what is allowed in their image. Well guess what; the type of equipment, settings on your camera, and place you took the image are all up to the photographer. If photography is just snapping an image to get to the “Truth”, why do you even need all this software and why would people want to learn tips and tricks if you shouldn’t use them. There is no such thing as an unaltered image. Would you rip on someone who is a painter for the type of brushes, canvas, or type of paint they used because it somehow distorts the “Truth”. I only hope people are not as hypercritical as many seem to be about this magnificent article.