Add fireworks to a photo in Photoshop

Published on December 15, 2021

Add fireworks to a photo

In this blog I’ll show you a quick and simple method to add fireworks to your image in Adobe Photoshop!

Rather watch the video tutorial of this process? Click here or scroll down to the end of this page!

You can download the images I used here:
Skyline
Fireworks 1
Fireworks 2
Fireworks 3

Step 1: Add fireworks

Open all the images you want to use. Select the move tool and place the first firework image over the photo you’re editing (open the firework image and drag it to the file you’re editing). Press CTRL+T to resize the firework layer and pick the correct placement.

If you’re using several firework images, repeat this with the other images. You can see what that looks like in the image below.

When you’re happy with the placement, select all the firework layers. Right click on them and ‘merge layers‘. You can’t change the placement and size of the layers after merging them, so make sure it’s right before you merge.

Change the blend mode of your firework layer to ‘lighten‘ or ‘screen‘. The fireworks are a bit brighter if you use the screen blend mode, so I use that.

Step 2: Masking

As you can see in the image below, the fireworks are now in front of the buildings. I want the fireworks to be behind the buildings, so I’ll show you how to do that!

Select your background layer and use the quick selection tool to select the buildings. Then select the firework layer (with your selection still active) and add a layer mask. Navigate to ‘image > adjustments > invert‘ or press CTRL+I to invert your layer mask.

Your layer panel should look similar the the one below.

Zoom in on your image and check if all the fireworks are behind your buildings. As you can see in the image below, the red fireworks are partially in front of the building (because the selection I made earlier wasn’t correct). To fix that, select your layer mask and select the brush tool. I use a soft round brush, opacity 100%.

Make sure the foreground color is black and brush over the areas where you want to erase the fireworks. You can use the [and ] keys to adjust your brush size. When you want to bring back the fireworks in some areas instead of erasing them, use white as the foreground color.