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blue sky and clouds
- Thread starter trs
- Start date
Hi trs,
Here is a quick and easy way of doing it.
1. Selection-colour range
2. Use the plus eyedropper in that dialogue box to choose all of the sky(don't worry if it also chooses other parts of your image. Click OK
3. Use the lasso tool while holding down the alt key to delete any part of the image that is not sky.
4. Now you have a number of options.
1. Go to "set foreground colour" and choose a nice deep blue colour.
2. Go to gradient tool (under Paint Bucket tool) and drag from top to bottom of your image.
2nd option
1. Open another image which has a sky you like and select the sky the same as above.
2. Copy and then use "paste into" to paste the new sky into your original selection. Personally I have taken a number of photos of just the sky, clear blue, stormy, cloudy etc for this part of the enhancement.
3rd option.
1 Use any number of enhancements, curves, saturation, levels etc to enhance the selected sky. Most times though the sky is so washed out you do not have much to play with using this option.
Hope this helps.
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http://www.pbase.com/relate2
Here is a quick and easy way of doing it.
1. Selection-colour range
2. Use the plus eyedropper in that dialogue box to choose all of the sky(don't worry if it also chooses other parts of your image. Click OK
3. Use the lasso tool while holding down the alt key to delete any part of the image that is not sky.
4. Now you have a number of options.
1. Go to "set foreground colour" and choose a nice deep blue colour.
2. Go to gradient tool (under Paint Bucket tool) and drag from top to bottom of your image.
2nd option
1. Open another image which has a sky you like and select the sky the same as above.
2. Copy and then use "paste into" to paste the new sky into your original selection. Personally I have taken a number of photos of just the sky, clear blue, stormy, cloudy etc for this part of the enhancement.
3rd option.
1 Use any number of enhancements, curves, saturation, levels etc to enhance the selected sky. Most times though the sky is so washed out you do not have much to play with using this option.
Hope this helps.
--
http://www.pbase.com/relate2
Haynes
Forum Enthusiast
One thing I really like about Photoshop is that there are so many different ways to do things.
An easy way to "fake" a sky is use a background layer, set the foreground color to your choice of blue, set background color to white. Fill the new layer with white, then use filter, render, clouds. I learned this technique from our very own Shan.
Thanks Shan
Haynes
An easy way to "fake" a sky is use a background layer, set the foreground color to your choice of blue, set background color to white. Fill the new layer with white, then use filter, render, clouds. I learned this technique from our very own Shan.
Thanks Shan
Haynes
willmitch
Member
While those suggestions for using Photoshop are excellent, another thing you might want to consider is improving the sky when you actually shoot the photo. Polarizing filters are excellent for this, and you can use one even if your camera doesn't accept filters. In the past I have had many good results by simply hand-holding a polarizer in front of my camera's lens. I now use a filter adaptor, usually, but still sometimes use the hand-held method when I'm in a hurry or when I'm not carrying the adaptor. I usually need to make color corrections to compensate for the filter, but it gives a sky/cloud contrast that you really can't easily duplicate with post-processing.
Keith Thompson
Active member
Here are detailed steps to replace a sky with another sky that you have taken.
Select sky – select – color range
Click in the sky area – drag fuzziness to about 133 to get nice tight selection of sky – OK
On channels palette – click on save selection as channel icon
If the sky is white in the alpha1 channel – press ctl D to deselect – double click on alpha1 channel title area and then choose color indicates selected area – OK
Now clean up the alpha1 channel – click on alpha1 channel to move your view to this channel -–zoom in to 100%
Now using eraser tool erase some of the black areas beneath the treetops
Open new sky photo and crop to correct size and resolution
With new sky in foreground drag its title from layers palette into the photo. This makes a new layer with the sky.
Press 5 on the keyboard (KB) to reduce opacity of sky layer to 50% - now you can see both layers
With the move tool position sky
Press 0 on the KB to restore sky layer opacity to 100%
On the channels palette click on load channel as selection icon at bottom of palette
Choose select – modify – expand – type 2 in pixels field, then OK. What you’re doing here is expanding the saved selection ever so slightly so that new sky trims away the hazy blue fringing around treetops on the background layer.
Choose – select – feather – 1 pixel – OK
Choose select – inverse and then with sky layer selected press DELETE key
Ctl D to deselect.
Select sky – select – color range
Click in the sky area – drag fuzziness to about 133 to get nice tight selection of sky – OK
On channels palette – click on save selection as channel icon
If the sky is white in the alpha1 channel – press ctl D to deselect – double click on alpha1 channel title area and then choose color indicates selected area – OK
Now clean up the alpha1 channel – click on alpha1 channel to move your view to this channel -–zoom in to 100%
Now using eraser tool erase some of the black areas beneath the treetops
Open new sky photo and crop to correct size and resolution
With new sky in foreground drag its title from layers palette into the photo. This makes a new layer with the sky.
Press 5 on the keyboard (KB) to reduce opacity of sky layer to 50% - now you can see both layers
With the move tool position sky
Press 0 on the KB to restore sky layer opacity to 100%
On the channels palette click on load channel as selection icon at bottom of palette
Choose select – modify – expand – type 2 in pixels field, then OK. What you’re doing here is expanding the saved selection ever so slightly so that new sky trims away the hazy blue fringing around treetops on the background layer.
Choose – select – feather – 1 pixel – OK
Choose select – inverse and then with sky layer selected press DELETE key
Ctl D to deselect.
shan canfield
Forum Enthusiast
--All good suggestions. The method you choose depends on what you have image wise, to start off with. For example, if you have a sky with clouds and you can make out this detail, but perhaps the sky is pale--you could simply make a copy of that layer, change this copy Layer Blending mode to Multiply, ( and sometimes overlay works, too). add a layer mask and click on that mask thumbnail to mask out everything but the sky. Remember for painting masks, you must see the mask icon in the column next the layer name and in the title bar of the image window. Then using good size airbrush paint with black to conceal the "multiply" effect and white to "reveal." If you have a particular drab sky photo, perhaps you could post it?
Shan
Visit the home for Photoshopaholics at
http://www.shanzcan.com
Shan
Visit the home for Photoshopaholics at
http://www.shanzcan.com
Ellery Potash
Senior Member
When I have an "uninteresting" or drab sky, I mask it out and replace it with the sky from another picture that has a better sky.
The picture, below, is made up of three. Each statue photo was taken on an opposite end of a bridge that I was standing on in Paris. I stitched them together and blended the river currents and background bridge in PhotoShop. The skies in each of the individual pictures didn't match at the seam, so I replaced the inconsistant, drab, gray sky with the clouds from a better sky.
one of the originals is shown, below:
http://www.pbase.com/image/1915459
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Pixelated
The picture, below, is made up of three. Each statue photo was taken on an opposite end of a bridge that I was standing on in Paris. I stitched them together and blended the river currents and background bridge in PhotoShop. The skies in each of the individual pictures didn't match at the seam, so I replaced the inconsistant, drab, gray sky with the clouds from a better sky.
one of the originals is shown, below:
http://www.pbase.com/image/1915459
--
Pixelated
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