Fireworks displays are glorious, and also a common occurrence in the U.S. over Independence day. If you’re lucky, you’ll find yourself in a great location with your camera on a tripod.

But sometimes you just want to enjoy the show, or the conditions are not ideal to photograph the event. The good news is that you can recreate the festivities in post-processing by adding fireworks in Photoshop.

Here are the steps to adding your fireworks photos to an image in Photoshop:

Step 1: Prepare (or photograph) your main scene

If you already have a landscape scene you want to add fireworks into, then you’re all set! Process the photo as you would like and move on to the next step. If you want to add fireworks to an upcoming event, you can also get a quick photo of a location with your camera or mobile phone before the event begins. If it’s not very dark out yet, that’s fine, you can always reduce the exposure in post-processing.

Tip: I find that images photographed after the sun sets — but still with some light in the sky — give the best results.

Once your image is ready, the key is to have a clear, dark sky with an interesting foreground or surroundings.

Step 2: Prepare the fireworks image(s)

Before you can add a fireworks photo to a composite, you’ll first want to make sure that it is prepared properly for blending into your main image. If you are using your own photographs, you’ll likely need to do a bit of editing to the images so that they blend properly into your scene. Here are some tips to help get you started:

  • Try making the fireworks so that the backgrounds are pure black. This is essential so that when you blend the photos, only the fireworks area shows through.
  • Crop the photo(s) so that they only contain the fireworks image.

(Another option is to use stock photos of fireworks! You can find many on Adobe Stock; click here to view a collection of fireworks photos.)

In the images below, I used RAW processing (ACR or Lightroom) to make the background darker by reducing the shadows and blacks sliders. Then, I cropped each photo so that only the fireworks burst was visible in the frame.

Step 3: Add the fireworks in Photoshop to your image

Make sure that your main photo is open and ready inside Photoshop. Then you’ll need to get the fireworks images as new layers in your image. There are a few different ways you can do this (and you can also learn how to add images as layers in Photoshop with this short video tutorial):

  • Drag and drop: If you have your photos easily accessible from an opened folder, you can simply drag and drop the file over your open document, and after releasing it you’ll see it as a new layer. You might need to first resize and commit the file (press the Enter or Return key) before it appears in the layers panel.
  • Using the menu: You can also use the menu to add your photos as new layers. Go to File > Place Embedded, then navigate to the file you want to add as a new layer.
  • Copy and paste: Another quick way to add your photos is to simply copy and paste them. You can copy them from any source (including another Photoshop document), and then paste them to your document to add them as a new layer.

Step 4: Blend and arrange the fireworks images

Now, set the blend mode of each fireworks layer to Screen. This will knock out the blacks in the photo so that only the bright streaks of the fireworks show through. Also, if there are any areas of the fireworks layer that you want to hide, add a layer mask and brush with black over those areas to hide them.

The screen blending mode is applied to the fireworks layers to blend them with the main image.

You will also need to arrange the fireworks over your image so they are in a good spot. Use the transform tool by going to Edit > Free Transform, or use the keyboard shortcut Cmd + T (Mac) or Ctrl + T (Win). Then, position and scale the photos so they are in a good location over your image.

Tip: Change the blend mode of your fireworks layer(s) before resizing so that you can better position them in the frame.

Step 5: Add final touches to your image composite

Finally, you can finish by adding some finishing touches. I recommend adding film grain to your photo to help blend the layers together. You can also add adjustment layers to add stylization to your finished image.

The final result: