Turn day to night, and make your content shine…

6th October 2022

It’s definitely true that there’s something so beautiful about nighttime shots. They can be used not only to show the changing of the season to colder, darker months but also there are moods and stories that when shot at night just work better.

But it’s easier said than done…

Ever whipped your camera out to take a picture after dark, only to look back and see that what should have been your moody, moonlit work of art, is actually a grainy, undynamic image, doing nothing but taking up space?

Even though cameras are getting better and better at working at night with their advanced sensor technology starting to really pull out some stops, the difference between day and night shooting is still often all too clear. 

Unless you have a huge budget for either really high end equipment or expensive lighting to help get what you need, it’s going to be a challenge. And that’s before the joys of coordinating a nighttime shoot! 

A quick daytime trick

So what if we could shoot in the day, and make it look like the night? What if we could use all the advantages of those day time, clear, less grainy and more dynamic shoots, and just make them look like night time?

Well my friend, Morgan and the rest of the motion team here at HDY might just be able to grant you that wish with our guide to day for night grading…

WATCH MORGAN’S TUTORIAL HERE

So to recap in 6…

  1. Flatten the tone curve of your image to make it less bright 
  2. Decrease the temperature of the image
  3. Drop the image’s saturation to take out some colour
  4. Drop the exposure to make the whole image appear darker
  5. Go back to tone curve and tweak, paying close attention to the brightest parts of your image
  6. Add some blue to the image as a whole, and some green to the shadows. 

Every camera and editing software will differ, so do spend some time tweaking each above step. Also worth avoiding the actual sky when using this day-for-night grading technique.

There you have it, try making some of your own content stand out by following this process, and if you want to find out a little more about how HDY can support you in all things content, please do get in touch.