Adobe Photoshop Tutorial: Adding Fireworks To A Photo

Step 5: Lower The Opacity Of The Fireworks Layer

With the layer mask added, we're going to use it to hide the fireworks in any areas where we don't want them to appear. Currently, the fireworks in my image are appearing in front of the buildings, and I want them to appear to be behind the buildings, which means I need to hide any areas of the fireworks that are in front of them. To do that, all I need to do is paint with black over the buildings, and because I'm painting on the layer mask, not the image itself, I'll be hiding the fireworks in any areas I paint over. Problem is, the fireworks are making it difficult for me to see where the buildings actually are, so to solve that problem, I'm simply going to lower the opacity of the fireworks layer in the top right corner of the Layers palette. I'm going to lower it all the way down to about 25% so I have no trouble seeing the buildings behind them:

Step 6: Paint With Black To Hide The Fireworks As Needed

Now that I can see the image easily behind the fireworks, I can paint with black over the buildings. Press the letter D on your keyboard to reset your Foreground and Background colors. Normally when you do this, you end up with black as your Foreground color and white as your Background color, but when you have a layer mask selected in the Layers palette, as we do, and you reset the colors, you actually end up with the exact opposite. White becomes your Foreground color and black becomes your Background color. We want black as our Foreground color, so to fix that, simply press X on your keyboard to swap your Foreground and Background colors.

Then, grab your Brush Tool from the Tools palette or press B to access it with the keyboard shortcut:

Then, using a hard-edged brush and with black as your Foreground color, paint over any areas in the image where you want to hide the fireworks. You can zoom in on the image to make things easier by holding down Ctrl+Spacebar (Win) / Command+Spacebar (Mac) and dragging a selection around the area you want to zoom in on, then hold down the spacebar by itself to access the Hand Tool and drag the image around on the screen as needed:

If you make a mistake and accidentally paint over an area you didn't mean to paint over, just press X on your keyboard once again to swap your Foreground and Background colors, which will make white your Foreground color, and paint over the area to bring back the fireworks. Then press X to set black as your Foreground color again and continue painting.

When you're done, if you've zoomed in on the image, press Ctrl+0 (Win) / Command+0 (Mac) to quickly zoom back out. Also, set the opacity of the fireworks layer back to 100%.

Here's my image after painting on the layer mask. The fireworks now appear to be behind the buildings:

Step 7: Duplicate The Fireworks Layer To Brighten Them (Optional)

Finally, if you want your fireworks to be even brighter, with "Layer 1" still selected, press Ctrl+J (Win) / Command+J (Mac) to duplicate the layer:

If, after duplicating the layer, you find your fireworks are a little too intense, simply lower the opacity of the duplicated layer. I'm going to lower mine to about 50%:

Once you've fine-tuned the brightness of your fireworks, you're done!

Here's my original image once again before adding the fireworks:

And here, after duplicating my fireworks layer and then lowering the opacity of the duplicate layer to 50%, is my final result:

And there we have it!

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