How to add a smoke or mist effect to my product photos using AI?

Quick Answer

Render the smoke or mist inside the same image as the product, not as a layer dropped on top. In Nightjar, pick a moody photographic look (Nightjar calls these Photography Styles) and write the atmospheric description into the per-generation instructions Nightjar calls Custom Directions. The wisps wrap around the product, fade with depth, and catch the studio light, which a flat Photoshop overlay cannot do.

Why smoke and mist are harder than they look

Real atmosphere is volumetric. Three things have to line up for it to read as physical:

• Volume: it wraps around and behind the product, not just over the front.
• Transparency: thin wisps are see-through, dense pockets are not.
• Light: it catches rim light, glows in beams, and softens shadows.

A "smoke.jpg" pasted over a finished photo misses all three and reads as a sticker.

How to build the effect into a new shot

Nightjar separates the photographic look (camera, lighting, mood, color) into a reusable Photography Style, and refines a single Generation with Custom Directions, written instructions layered on top of the chosen Style. For atmosphere the two pair up like this:

1. Open the Product Listing Image Workflow in the Create tab. A Workflow is Nightjar's term for a product path tuned for one job, and Product Listing Image is the one tuned for ecommerce-ready imagery.
2. Upload the product Asset to your Library, the Team-shared collection where uploads, generated images, and reusable ingredients live together.
3. Pick a Photography Style that already speaks the right photographic language: a low-key cinematic look with rim light, a moody perfume editorial, or a soft natural-light fog. Nightjar ships with 150+ curated Styles, and you can build a custom Style from your own reference photos.
4. Write Custom Directions describing the atmospheric layer, for example "low hanging fog around the base," "soft wisps of smoke curling behind the bottle," or "thick atmospheric haze with light beams from the upper right."
5. Generate four to six candidates so you can pick the one where the density, placement, and rim-light interaction feel right.

Adding smoke to a photo you already have

When the product already lives in a finished image, use the Edit tab. The Edit tab is a plain-English, multi-image surface where you add Assets to a board, reference them in the prompt as @image1, @image2, and so on, then write the change you want. For atmosphere, add the photo and write something like "add soft wisps of smoke curling behind @image1, with light catching the smoke from the upper left and a thin haze settling around the base." Nightjar renders the smoke into the same lighting environment as the original Asset rather than pasting it on top.

Keeping the same atmosphere across a catalog

Once a look works, save the full Create-form setup as a Recipe: a Team-owned reusable saved version of the Style, output settings, and Custom Directions. Applying the same Recipe to the next product helps preserve a consistent moody treatment across a perfume, spirits, candle, or skincare line without rebuilding the brief each time.