Here is a sample of a day time shot that has been converted to a night time
scene using a few adjustments. These are a guide only and I guarantee that your
image will look different, so you'll need to tweak away.
What you'll need:
After Effects 6.0 or higher to open the project, but you can follow along in any version of AE.
Download the project file dayfornight.zip (Don't bother downloading this file if you don't have at least have AE 6.0 or above yet.)
PDF file
of the settings - for reference, especially if you're using a version of AE that's below 6.0.
Instructions:
Import your footage or stills into After Effects and put them in a comp.
You can either apply your effects directly to the footage layer or to an
adjustment layer. In my example, I've applied them to an adjustment layer.
It's up to you and depends on your project.
First, you must adjust the levels. Apply the levels filter to your layer.
You'll want to make it darker. This can be done by adjusting the middle arrow
of the histogram, or, the gamma. I set it to .60. You will also need to adjust
the output white level. I turned it down to 187.0.
Download
a favorite of the "day for night" effect- see your manual for instructions
on how to use favorites.
Next, apply color balance. The night time
light color has a bluish tint. Yes, I think my sample is a little bit too
blue, but there was a blue moon out that night! But seriously...I added to the
blue shadows, midtone and highlight, but left the other settings at their
defaults.
The last thing that needs some adjusting is curves. Apply the curves
filter and adjust the RGB curve. This will make it darker.
To view all of my settings, especially if you don't have AE 6.0 yet, check
out the pdf
file.
Michele
Yamazaki is VP of Marketing for Toolfarm.com
where she focuses on web design and content development.
She teaches Adobe After Effects at an art college.
Previously, she worked at a post-house for ten
years and ran an After Effects website called
AE FreeMart. She is a contributing author to the
CMP book 'After Effects @ Work'.
