AI relight: how to change the lighting in a video

AI relight changes the light in a video after it is shot: the direction, the color, the time of day and even the weather, without a reshoot.

Picsart Flow’s Relight Feature template shows how far that goes. One canvas holds:

• a diner that switches to police lights
• a sunny window that turns into a rainstorm
• a limo ride under party lights
• a festival scene shown at sunset, twilight and night

Every look comes from the same idea: keep the subject, change the light. Relight works on video clips, while stills get their light from the prompt before they ever start moving.

This guide explains how AI video relighting works and shows how to relight video with AI step by step. It also covers how to fix lighting in a photo before it turns into a clip, plus tips for natural-looking results.

What is AI relighting?

Relighting means changing how light falls on a scene that has already been captured or generated. In photography, that used to require a new shoot: move the softbox, wait for golden hour, rent a rain machine. Relight AI does the same job in software. It reads the people, objects and surfaces in a frame, then redraws shadows, highlights and reflections as though a different light source had been there all along.

Image relighting and video relighting work toward the same goal, but a video relight is the harder job. Every frame has to agree with the one before it, so a shadow cannot jump or flicker as a person moves. That consistency is what good relight video AI delivers, and it is why a relit clip can pass for footage shot under that light. Portrait relighting adds another layer, because skin, hair and eyes reveal bad lighting faster than anything else in a picture.

One scene, many lights: a tour of the template

The Relight Feature template is less a single workflow than a lighting lookbook. Each row on the canvas takes a scene and pushes it into a different mood, which makes it a useful reference before you build your own.

• The festival. A woman with pink hair blows a kiss and flashes a peace sign in front of a Ferris wheel. The same clip appears in golden late-afternoon light, at twilight under a purple and orange sky, and at night with the wheel lit up, so one performance becomes three different evenings.
• The diner. Two friends share fries in a retro diner booth. In one version the warm light suddenly switches to a flashing red and blue police lights effect; in another, the lights go out completely.
• The window. A woman shields her eyes from harsh sun at an open window, then the scene drops into a dark, heavy rainstorm while the room behind her glows green.
• The night ride. A couple laughs in the back of a limo, shown under soft ambient light, warm interior light and shifting rainbow party lights.
• The product. Lip gloss bottles float against a sunset, a dusky sky and a deep blue backdrop, while beauty close-ups catch the stripes of window blinds and a wash of rainbow light.
• The city. One timelapse moves a skyline through rain, snow and thick fog.

Each chain starts from a text prompt and a character portrait, builds scene stills, turns them into video and ends in an Effects node that applies the new light. The character portraits keep the same faces across every version, and the canvas also holds plain light sources, such as a flashing police-light clip and a tinsel spotlight backdrop.

Three dials: light, time of day and weather

Relight arrived on the canvas with generative editing in Picsart Flow, and AI video lighting there comes down to three groups of presets. Each one answers a different creative question.

Change the light source when the mood is about drama or style. Spotlight and Backlight sculpt a subject, Warm Light and Blue Light shift the emotional temperature, and Paparazzi, Police Lights, Rainbow, Blinds and a classic lens flare effect add a story to the light itself.

Change the time of day when the scene needs a different hour. High Noon, Early Morning, Early Evening, Twilight, Night and Midnight move the same clip across a whole day, which is how the festival scene turns into a day to night video. Night and Midnight also replace the old day for night effect, where filmmakers shot in daylight and darkened the footage afterwards.

Change the weather when the setting needs a new atmosphere. Rain, Fog, Snow, Smoke, Thunder, Wind, Sunny and Dark turn one location into several, which is handy for seasonal campaigns.

Every preset tile previews its effect on hover, so you can try looks before running anything. The relit video appears as a new node, and the original clip stays untouched beside it.

More ways to use AI relight

The template covers diners, studios and festivals, but the same presets open up plenty of other ideas. Here are a few to try with your own footage.

• Seasonal campaigns from one shoot. Film a product once, then add Snow for a winter ad, Sunny for summer and Warm Light for the holidays.
• Day-to-night storytelling. Move one scene from Early Morning to Midnight to show time passing in a short film or a travel reel.
• Music video moods. Switch a performance between Rainbow, Blue Light and Lens Flare to match the beat of each verse.
• Spooky edits. Add Fog, Thunder or Dark to an ordinary street for a Halloween clip or a mystery teaser.
• Stage and spotlight moments. Put a dancer, a speaker or a pet under a Spotlight or Backlight for a dramatic reveal.

Relight video in seven steps

The template does the heavy lifting, so the steps to AI relight video stay short. Open it in Picsart Flow, or start a blank canvas in the workflow editor and add the same nodes.

How to fix lighting in a photo before it moves

Relighting a finished clip is powerful, but many lighting problems are easier to solve in the still image first. In the template, stills get their light from the prompt, so the wording decides how the photo is lit before it ever becomes video.

The template’s own prompts show how to do it. Instead of “good lighting”, they describe the light the way a photographer would brief it: “bathed in bright natural sunlight under a clear blue sky”, “the warm, golden light of late afternoon”, or “harsh, direct sunlight casts sharp shadows across her face”. To fix lighting in a photo inside Flow, rewrite that one part of the prompt, keep the reference image connected so the person stays the same, and generate a new version of the still.

This is also the simplest way to brighten a dark shot: describe where the light comes from instead of asking for “brighter”. A photo with clear, intentional light makes a better starting frame, and the Effects presets then have more to work with once the scene starts moving.

Relight your next scene

AI relight turns one shot into many moods, from a neon night to a sunlit festival, without booking a new shoot. Open the Relight Feature template, add your own photo and find the light that tells your story.