Sunday, August 16, 2015

CoffeeShop "Firefly Nights" Complete Editing Kit!


I have been a little sad lately and I found one thing that really cheers me up is to play on the computer and design new things for my blog. It has been too hot to spend much time outdoors and the boys enjoy building legos or reading during the middle of the day, so I can run up to my computer and distract myself for an hour or two doing something I really love.

Today I am excited to release my "Firefly Nights" editing kit.  This kit allows you to take a daytime shot and turn it into a magical night full of fireflies. The kit contains everything you need to complete the edit including a "night" action, firefly overlay, and mason jar image.

This type of edit won't work with every image and you will have to adjust the settings for your own image to get a beautiful edit. But it is so fun to create these types of images and I know you will have fun making your own fantasy photography art.

I used a gorgeous image from Enchanted by Leesa (Blog, Facebook, Twitter, Instagram) on this tutorial.  Thank you so much Leesa!

CoffeeShop "Firefly Nights" Editing Tutorial:

Before we start you have to have the "Firefly Nights" action installed on your Photoshop/PSE. Also locate the CS Firefly Overlay and CS Mason Jar included in the download.


Open your image and run the "Firefly Nights" action on it.


This is what the image layers will look like when the action finishes running.  I will show you how I edited this image, but you might have to adjust the settings on your own image to get a beautiful effect.


Add Night: There are two Night layers.  For this image I wanted to really darken it, so I kept the "Night" layer pre-set on 100% opacity and turned on the "Night 2" layer and set it to 34% opacity.  You can play around with the opacities or even open up the levels layer and play with the sliders until you love the effect.

Add Light: Next you will want to add light on your portrait.  Both the "Light" and "Light 2" layers have black layer masks, so you will have to paint on them to add light.

I selected a 100% soft white brush and selected the "Light" layer's black mask and clicked on the little girl and instantly she was brightened. See screenshot above. You can add additional light using the "Light 2" layer, but it was not necessary in this edit.

You can also paint on the "Night" layer's mask with a soft black brush to remove some of the night-effect from your portrait, but I didn't find it necessary in this edit.


Add Fireflies: Open up the CS Firefly overlay and drag it on top of your image, under the "Warm it up" layer. Free-transform it to fit.

 
Put the Firefly overlay in Screen blending mode.


If you want to enhance the firefly light, just copy the Firefly overlay layer and adjust the opacity to taste. I set the copied layer to 31% to add a  bit more glow.

You can also adjust the "Warm it up" layer if you don't want the image to be so warm.


Add Mason Jar: If you want to add the mason jar, open up the CS Mason Jar image and drag it on top of your image, just over the Background.


Free-Transform it to fit and lower the opacity a bit so the background shows behind it. I lowered the opacity to 81%. You can also add a bit of gaussian blur if you are adding it to a part of your image with some lens blur.


Adding Firefly Light to Jar: Add a new layer over the mason jar but under "Remove Red Casts". Grab a large soft white brush and click on the mason jar to add light. Then lower the opacity of that layer to taste. I set it at 72%.


Here is my before and after.  I love how this turned out. I would love to see your own firefly edits on my Facebook page!

Download the free CoffeeShop "Firefly Nights" Editing Kit. You can also download it here.

Do you want to download my favorite CoffeeShop PSE/Photoshop Actions and Lightroom Presets or Design Elements in one convenient zipped file AND help support this blog? Just click here for my action pack or here for a download of some of my most popular design elements, storyboards, and textures.

For complete info on installing all of my actions, click here.


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17 comments:

  1. How great is this!!!!

    thank you very much

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  2. How freaking cool! Thanks for the kit and all the helpful info.

    I'm so sorry that you have been feeling sad lately. Hope you are feeling more yourself very soon!

    Lisa D.

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  3. Hi . I am a photographer and want to use the jar in a altered photo for a client. Would that be ok? Im using macphun as PS alternative

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    1. Absolutely Lolly! Use it anyway you want commercially, I just ask that people don't resell the designs "as is" since I want to keep them free. Thank you so much for asking!!! Rita

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  4. I cant figure out where the mason jar and fire flies are

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  5. I can't figure out how to add the fire flies and mason jar to a picture?

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    1. It is all explained in the tutorial above. :-)

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  6. The firefly overlay and Mason Jar does not show up when I add the Firefly Action on my picture?? What am I doing wrong?

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    1. You have to read the entire post, it has step-by-step instructions on how to add the Mason Jar. :-)

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  7. thank you so much this was so fun to play with! loved it.......

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    1. Loretta, you are so welcome! I would love to see your results on my Facebook page if you wouldn't mind sharing them. :-)

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  8. This is lovely! Thank you

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  9. This is lovely! Thank you

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Thank you for taking the time to leave a message, I love reading them! All comments are personally moderated by me and I will post and answer them them as soon as possible.
Rita