Enhance your night shots with this really simple photo editing tutorial

One way to capture a dramatic-looking night shot is to pop the camera on a tripod and use a slow shutter speed to turn passing cars into colourful streaks of light. These vibrant light trails add contrasting colours and tones to a cold dull background, as well as evoking a great sense of movement in your still image.

In this tutorial’s end result, the light trails also help enhance the composition by linking the car on the left with the blurry figures on the right. Capturing light trails in-camera is a hit-and-miss affair. You have to experiment with different shutter speeds to get the streaks to register and also to make them look long enough.

You also have to deal with variables such as changing lighting conditions and car speeds. Thanks to Photoshop Elements, though, you can whip up some digital light trails by modifying brush tips to produce a streaky texture.

Here we’ll demonstrate how to transform the 2D streaks and give them a sense of depth and direction. We’ll show you how to use layers and blending modes to make the trails mix realistically with the background. By creating the trails digitally, you can make them as long or short as you like, without having to experiment with your exposure settings.

Post production

In this light trail tutorial we’ll use the Liquify filter to add subtle effects, such as making the light trails undulate due to the car passing along uneven ground. We’ll also demonstrate how to use adjustment layers and masks to make the light streaks appear to illuminate their environment.

01 Open the start file

Download our start files and follow along! Copy our raw start file to your computer’s hard drive. In Photoshop Elements, choose File>Open and browse to select light trails_before.dng. Click Open. As this is a digital negative format file, it will open in the Adobe Camera Raw editor, Photoshop’s raw-processing digital darkroom.

02 Adjust the exposure

The histogram graph is huddled towards the right, indicating bright highlights. To reveal colours and details in the over-exposed sky, drag the Exposure slider left to -2.20. Drag Highlights down to -22 to reveal more information in the brightest areas. The histogram now shows a healthier spread of tones.

03 Contrast and colour

Push Shadows up to +36 to reveal the darker car without over-exposing the correctly adjusted highlights. Boost Vibrance to +30 to tease out the scene’s weak colours. Drag Temperature left to 4750. This adds a cooler moody look that will contrast more effectively with the warm light trails.

04 Create a new layer

Now that we’ve processed the shot’s colour and tones, we’re ready to get creative. Click Open Image to take the processed raw file into Photoshop Elements’ Expert editor. From the top menu, choose Layer>New>Layer. Label the layer ‘Light Trail’ and click OK. The new layer will appear in the Layers palette.

05 Choose a tip

Grab the Brush tool from the Tools panel’s Draw section. The Tool Options bar will appear at the bottom. Make sure that you’ve selected the Brush tool (and not one of the brush-based colleagues that shares its compartment). Click in the Brush Preset picker and choose Spatter 59 pixels.

06 Choose a colour

Increase the tip’s Size slider to 150. Click on the foreground colour swatch in the Tools panel to open the Color Picker. Click to choose a warm red. To produce the same colour that we’re using, set H (Hue) to 12 degrees, S (Saturation) to 95% and B (Brightness) to 86%. Click OK.

07 Draw a red trail

Click to place a point by the car’s rear lamp, move the cursor to the right and then Shift-click to draw a straight line between the two points. Go to the Layers palette and set the Light Trail layer’s blending mode to Lighten. This reveals detail from the layer below and creates a more realistic light trail texture.

08 Draw a yellow trail

Click on the foreground colour swatch and choose a yellow (H:48, S:62, B:93) from the Colour Picker. Click OK. Create a new transparent layer called ‘Yellow Trail’. Set the layer’s blending mode to Color Dodge. Set the tip Size to 100 pixels. Click the start of the red light trail and Shift-click at the end to draw a yellow streak.

09 Transform the perspective

In the Layers palette, Shift-click on the two light trail layers to highlight them both. Go to Image>Transform>Perspective. A bounding box will appear around the trails. Click and drag the bounding box’s top-left control handle downwards to narrow the start of the light trails.

10 Rotate the trail

In the Tool Options bar, click to set the bounding box’s Reference Point Location to the left so it will pivot on the light trail’s start point.
Set Angle to -2.09 Degrees to make the beam match the picture’s perspective. Drag inside the bounding box to re-position the trail.

11 Fine-tune the trail position

Click the tick to apply the perspectival transformation. Go to Image>Transform>Free Transform. Click and drag the new bounding box’s handles to adjust the length of the light trails so that they stop just before the figures on the right. Press Return to apply the transformation.

12 Add a wobble

Click on the Yellow Trail layer in the Layers palette. Go to Filter>Distort>Liquify. Grab the Turbulence tool [T]. In the Tool Options section, set Brush Size to 200. Set Brush Pressure and Turbulent Jitter to 50. Click and spray along the trail, moving the cursor slightly up and down. Click OK.

13 Reduce the trail opacity

Select the red Light Trail layer and use the same Liquify filter technique to distort it a little too. Reduce the layer’s Opacity to 76% to reveal more background detail. Reduce the Yellow Trail layer’s Opacity to 87% to mix in some red and create a more orangey hue.

14 Light the lamp

Create a new transparent layer called ‘Lamp’. Grab the Brush tool and choose a soft round tip. Set the foreground colour to red. Click a few times to create an orange glow around the rear lamp. Shift-click to select the three light layers. Choose Layer> Duplicate Layers. In the Layer Set window, click OK.

15 Duplicate and transform

Choose Image>Transform>Free Transform. Drag inside the bounding box to move the three duplicated layers over the car’s other rear lamp. Use the control handles to rotate and squash the layers. Press Return. Drag the three duplicated layers below the original light layers in the layer stack.

16 Add interactive lighting

Click on the Background layer. Choose Layer> New Adjustment Layer>Hue/Saturation. Tick Colorize. Set Hue to 12 and Saturation to 34. Click on the adjustment layer’s white mask and press Ctrl/Cmd+I. Spray a white soft brush tip on the mask to reveal some of the adjustment layer’s orange tint.

17 Create a lens flare

Choose Layer>New>Layer. Label the layer ‘Lens Flare’. Click OK. Drag the new layer to the top of the layer stack. Choose Edit>Fill Layer. Set the Contents menu to 50% Gray. Click OK. Choose Filter>Render>Lens Flare. Set Lens Type to 50-300mm Zoom. Set Brightness to 80%. Click OK.

18 Re-position the flare

Set the Lens Flare layer’s blending mode to Overlay. This hides all the grey pixels but leaves the flare visible. Grab the Move tool and drag the flare so that it overlaps the light trail. This blending mode causes the light trails to randomly change brightness and vibrance and look more realistic.