Perking up a sunset

[dmstraker]

Here's a way to quickly perk up a sunset, using just blend modes.

Let's start with a basic sunset picture. This is a view over Madrid a couple of weeks ago.

Now duplicate this layer twice (Ctrl-J, Ctrl-J), then turn off the top layer (check mark on right in layers panel).

Select the middle layer. Invert it (Ctrl-I). Change Blend mode to Luminosity (drop-down box at top of layers panel that says 'Normal').

Hmm. A bit strong. Turn Opacity (top of layers panel) down to 50%.

Now we have (a) interesting colours in sky and, notably, (b) grey elsewhere (the invert turns darks into lights which turned down are grey). So we can use a contrast mode blend which ignores greys. So turn on the top layer (box at right of layer) and set blend mode to Hard Light.

Ole. A perkier sunset. You can play with the blend modes of layers. The middle layer, for example, is also good with Colour Dodge.

If the result is a bit too colourful for you, you can always add a HSL layer above and turn down the saturation. So it looks something like this.

This shows something of the joys of using blend modes. To get something similar could take a lot of twiddling, while this was a few seconds (well, actually a bit longer first time as I was just playing around to see what happens).

[jer]

Dave, tremendous technique. The proof is in the step-by-step photos you attached. Thanks for this idea!

[sirdrake]

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[Herbill]

A Terrific technique and so straight forward. I have a sunset image that need a bit of beefing up!! I look forward to trying it out. 

Thanks for sharing.

[carl123]

Best to avoid during the rainy season...

 

 

 

[BiffBrown]

Useful technique. Thank you.