How to Enhance Night Footage in Adobe Premiere Pro CC (2018)

The night creates a really unique opportunity for shooting. The blend of lights, the high contrast, and the mystery of it all helps to make night shots compelling. Just like every other shot, there are ways you can color correct, and color grade to enhance this footage. In this tutorial, we will be going through how to enhance night footage in Adobe Premiere Pro CC.

How to Enhance Night Footage in Adobe Premiere Pro CC (2018)

1. Locate piece of night footage you want to use. (For learning check out videos.pexels.com; royalty free)
2. Create a new adjustment layer by going to file->new->adjustment layer. Add this to the sequence.
3. Go to the effects tab. Use the “find edges” effect. (located under video effects, stylize), drag and drop onto the  adjustment layer.
4. Click on the adjustment layer. Go to find edges, check the box next to Invert.
5. Under Opacity, switch from Normal to Screen mode.
6. Go to effects, find tint and drag onto adjustment layer.
7. Find it in effect controls. Go to Map White To and use the color picker to select a color.
8. Find blend with original under find edges, set to 15% and this will preserve detail.
9. Under effects, search for blur and select “Camera Blur”. Drag it on to your adjustment layer.
10. Under Opacity for the adjustment layer, lower it down to where it looks good. I chose 83%.
11. Hold alt key and drag your adjustment layer up (which will create a copy of it).
12. On the new layer, go to Camera Blur and delete it off.
13. Tint, choose a different color that provides accent (I chose orange).
14. Lower Opacity to 19% (We want this as a subtle change to add a 2^nd dimension).
15. Play around with settings (update the opacity to 42%, blend with original 30%, etc).

There you have it, that’s how you enhance night footage in Adobe Premiere Pro CC. With some little bit of color correction, you have been able to really bring out some color in the night footage. This can help create a certain mood with your footage, and make it look more “idealistic”. It’s a great technique to have memorized and ready to use in your tool-belt.