n this Photoshop effects tutorial, we learn how to easily add a star-filled sky to a night time photo. I'll be using Photoshop CS5 throughout the tutorial but any recent version of Photoshop will work just fine.
There's nothing quite as peaceful as being outside at night, looking up a cloudless sky and seeing an endless display of stars sparkling and twinkling above you, stretching far off into the horizon in all directions. It really makes you stop and realize just how tiny we are compared to everything that's out there, far beyond our reach, and even beyond our imagination.
Unfortunately, something else that's usually beyond our reach is our ability to capture those stars when we take photos at night. Our beautiful starry sky ends up looking more like a whole lot of nothing except darkness, and that's because the light from the stars is usually too dim to be captured by the camera, especially if there are other light sources nearby.
Lucky for us, Photoshop makes it easy to add the stars back into our photos. In fact, in some ways Photoshop makes things even better because we have complete control over just how "starry" our night sky becomes!
Here's the image I'll be starting with:
A dark, star-less night.
It's a nice photo showing all the city lights at night, but that sky above the city sure looks empty. Here's what it will look like when we're done:
The final result.
Let's get started!
Step 1: Add A New Blank Layer
With our image newly open in Photoshop, the first thing we need to do is add a new blank layer. We can see in the Layers panel that we currently have just one layer, the Background layer, which is the layer that contains the photo:
The photo sits on the Background layer in the Layers panel.
We need to add a new blank layer above the Background layer. Hold down your Alt (Win) / Option (Mac
) key and click on the New Layer icon at the bottom of the Layers panel:
Hold down Alt (Win) / Option (Mac) and click on the New Layer icon.
Normally when we click on the New Layer icon, Photoshop simply goes ahead and adds a new blank layer to the document, giving it some generic, meaningless name like "Layer 1", but by adding the Alt (Win) / Option (Mac) key, we tell Photoshop to first open theNew Layer dialog box for us, which gives us an easy way to name the new layer before it's added. Name the new layer "Stars":
Name the new layer "Stars".
Click OK when you're done to close out of the New Layer dialog box. Nothing will seem to have happened in the document window, but a quick look in the Layers panel shows us that a new blank layer named Stars has been added above the Background layer:
A new blank "Stars" layer appears above the Background layer.
Step 2: Fill The New Layer With Black
We need to fill our new layer with black, and we can do that using Photoshop's Fill command. Go up to the Edit menu in the Menu Bar along the top of the screen and choose Fill:
Go to Edit > Fill.
This opens the Fill dialog box. Set the Use option at the top of the dialog box to Black, then click OK to close out of the dialog box. Photoshop will fill the new layer with black, temporarily hiding the photo underneath it from view in the document window:
Set the Use option the Black, then click OK.
Step 3: Apply The Noise Filter
Let's add some noise to the layer, which will eventually become our stars. Go up to the Filter menu at the top of the screen, chooseNoise, and then choose Add Noise:
Go to Filter > Noise > Add Noise.
This opens the Add Noise filter's dialog box. The term "noise", in this case, simply means a whole bunch of little white dots. Drag theAmount slider towards the right until the value reads somewhere around 120%, which will add lots of noise to the layer:
Increase the Amount to around 120% by dragging the slider.
Click OK when you're done to close out of the dialog box, and Photoshop adds the noise to the layer:
Noise has been added to the Stars layer.
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