Quickie - Relighting in 2D

Written by David Charney
Posted: September 5, 2007 (11 months, 3 weeks ago) | 2 comments

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OK, here is a quick one. Someone was asking me about an old image I had as they noticed I had the lighting changed from the original they had seen.

 

STEP 1: Plan it out
First step is to have an idea of what the final image will look like. This can be defined by personal preference, by the boss, or because of other elements placed on or with the image. In this case I wanted to relight the image to feel more like a morning (ish) shot with the sun directly behind the main tower.

So I quickly defined some general marks with my ideas on where the light is coming from as well as how the light is bouncing. This image needed to be redone quickly so luckily there was no large reflections or close up objects which can complicate the adjustments. Need help thinking it through? There are plenty of images on the web that can be used as reference for how light bounces or how reflections, refraction, depth of field, etc would work.

STEP 2: Painting time
My first step was to paint over the entire scene to tone down values to the objects so when I knock down the saturation in the end I will have a bit of color consistency.

Then I began to paint in the lighting based on my original ideas. Keep in mind the objects in the scene and how they would react to light. For instance here we have clouds that absorb/filter light, background buildings that are bouncing light, a foreground building that will silhouette / mask light, etc.

 

 

Finally I knocked the saturation down and added any detailed lighting.

STEP 3: Fishing the thang!
Once done let sit for 10 minutes as it will be hot right out of the oven. Then adjust for whatever the final product is.

DONE!
You are done. Go outside!