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[ 73 ]ILLUMINATING & COLORIZING
LIGHTS AT NIGHT
Colorizing lights at night is a several-step process
for realistic illumination. If the photo is a landmark,
research is critical for authenticity. In this image, we’ll
be colorizing the lights around the Festival Hall at
the 1904 St. Louis World’s Fair in Missouri (you can
find a copy of this image by clicking here). The fair
introduced outdoor electrical lighting to thousands
of people. In researching light colors used at the fair,
I found this from the September 1904 St. Louis Elec-
trical Handbook: “On the inside of the pillars forming
the Colonnade are vertical lines of lamps, each unit
consisting of three incandescent lights, the first having
a clear bulb, the second a ruby, and the third an emer-
ald tint. This enables many color effects to be obtained,
as all the lights of one color can be turned on or any
combination of them can be blended.”
We’ll adopt the same technique the fair used in
Photoshop for this image. Before I started retouch-
ing the lights, I converted the original sepia image to
black and white; darkened the buildings, steps, sky,
and water; and added some color to the trees, grass,
building, steps, and water, using a variety of Solid
Color adjustment layers (the same way we’ll colorize
the lights).
Step One: Select the column lights on the right of one
of the domed buildings with the Rectangular Marquee
tool (M). Note: Since this is a stereoscope card, there
are two of the same image, and they can be worked
on simultaneously.
Step Two: Click on the Create New Adjustment Layer
icon (the half-black/half-white circle) at the bottom
of the Layers panel and choose Solid Color. Initially,
make this blue (#0000ff) since we’re working on a
dark image, and click OK. Once we’re done with this
layer, we’ll convert it to white, which will act as the
clear bulbs used during the fair. Double-click on the
layer name, and rename it “White Lights on Columns.”
Step Three: Change the layer’s blend mode from
Normal to Lighten and reduce its Opacity to 32%.
Select the Brush tool (B), and change the settings in
the Options Bar to Size: 4, Mode: Normal, Opacity and
Flow: 100%, and Smoothing: 10%.