PHOTOSHOP - Adding lights to a scene

Once in a while, when everything is set up on an interior location shoot, a light bulb may blow, it always does! If there is no replacement, what do you do? Does the whole job stop so someone can drive miles to find a rare bulb, or wait while everyone scurries around for a solution? maybe. But, if the bulb is the same as the others in the room, or similar, then swap it, take add it in post production. It’s a breeze. The flexibility you have knowing you can solve most visual problems is very cool.

In this traditional old hotel interior shoot, the bulb went as we turned it on, and they had no more. So I said, ‘no problem, let’s carry on and I will add it later’ they blinked and thought ‘what does he mean?’. There were two options to doing this.
1. Lock the tripod off, take a shot of the scene with the good bulb, then take the bulb out and put it in the other light stand, shoot this frame. Later in post merge the two frames together.
2. Take one shot and in post copy the light and adjust it so it fits in the space where the dead one is.

METHOD
You can take a seperate shot of the lamp that you can add later, or select and copy the right hand one in the shot and use that. They both end up looking the same anyway at the end of the day. But remember the details! the missing light alcove is visible in the mirror! so you will need to add the reflection there as well. So for this tutorial we will use (2). In Photoshop select the right hand alcove and make a layer of it (Co-J). Then use the Warp Tool, under Edit - Transform - Warp, to change the dimensions to fit the new smaller alcove. Set the Opacity in your Layers Palette to (50%) so you can see the alcove beneath it. Once that is done, then copy the left hand part of this new layer (Co-J) and use that to fit the mirror, using the same opacity settings. Then either flatten it and save as a .jpg file, or .psd Photoshop file to keep the layer stack for later if needed.

a. Original frame with missing light

b. Final frame with new light (plus mirrored)

c. Original frame with no candle flame

d. Final frame with candles glowing and straightened

e. Paint brush using Blend Mode

With this frame of Cellist Sue Urbita (c), I straightened the candle sticks and added a flame in post production, plus added a small glow to the standard lamp (d). Using my brush tool and a Soft Light Blend Mode (e) at 23% brush pressure, I darkened the room around her. This was just using a brush with black and white, although you can use any colour. Here it was just to give highlight and shadow to the room. I painted orange around the candle flames.

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