Photoshop Tutorial: How to Create a Sci-Fi Effect

Discover how to transform photos by using sci-fi elements to create a futuristic atmosphere, with concept artist Diogo Sampaio

Humanity has been imagining new worlds for thousands of years. Science Fiction can be defined as a genre or a style. It works with fictional or imaginary ideas about the future, science, and technology. Some of the most common Sci-Fi themes include: space, voyages through space or time, dystopia, parallel universes, climate change, life on other planets, the apocalypse, and a future dominated by machines. It gives you the perfect excuse to use the power of your imagination.

Concept Artist and Matte Painter Diogo Sampaio (@diogosampaio) creates surreal and futuristic scenes by combining images. He doesn’t capture moments (like in traditional photography), he brings ideas for projects in development to life using photomontage. And many of his images use elements inspired by Sci-Fi aesthetics.

While often using practically impossible compositions, his work manages to convey realism despite representing highly improbable scenes.

In this tutorial, Diogo teaches you how to create a seamless Sci-Fi aesthetic using only a few Adobe Photoshop tools.

Turn Day into Night

The first step to creating a Sci-Fi atmosphere is to turn day into night (if you took the reference photo during the day).

Press CTRL + J to duplicate the layer and replace the sky.

Select Layer Adjustments to dim the lights in your main image and simulate darkness. Now remove any blue shades to keep the foreground consistent with the background.

Add Sci-Fi elements like neon and adjust the perspective by pressing CTRL.

Use the Lighten tool to remove dark areas and then the Black Brush to remove any edges.

Create Clipping Mask to apply the effect exclusively to the lower layer and modify the neon shade.

Check out the final result!

Love this tutorial? Don’t miss Diogo Sampaio’s online course: Photomontage in Photoshop: Create a Futuristic Universe.

You may like:

- What is Photomontage?
- Photomontage in Photoshop: Create a Futuristic Universe, a course by Diogo Sampaio
- Free Download: 4 Photoshop Brushes for Magical Photomontage