if it's really an issue of copyright (I don't know this myself but just going with the theory) then it would probably depend on how closely your digital alterations match the actual lighting. If you did it to match/copy the copyrighted lighting, by looking at the actual lighting (in person with your laptop, from a picture, from memory), it would violate copyright just as much. If I re-type the words of a copyrighted text, it doesn't mean I haven't violated copyright.

> If I re-type the words of a copyrighted text, it doesn't mean I haven't violated copyright.

Copyrights are hard. Even if you look at public domain works like Sherlock Holmes, whose original stories are in the public domain, you can run into issues by giving him personality traits that are associated with derivative works that are still under copyright.

You can even use pictures taken at night, just not during the light show that happens every hour or whatever