Making a dull day look sunny

[Phil King]

Hi,

I am looking for a Photoshop technique to use to make the shots you take on a grey cloudy day look like they were taken on a sunny day.

Whilst time consuming, it is relatively simple to replace a dull cloudy sky with blue sky from another shot, or to recolour white skies blue using the excellent new Colour Replacement tool.

That's great, but it leaves you with an unnatural looking image with a glorious blue sky whilst the rest is dull. Does anyone have any tips for making the rest of the picture look like it is bathed in sunlight. Strengthening any shadows is also an issue. This would make a great tutorial in the "Learn" section!

I'd be really pleased to learn how to do this.

--
Phil

 

[James Kay]

Have you tried Nik Color Efex? They have a sunshine filter that is really good. Supposedly it is award winning. I have tried different methods manually through Photoshop, but have never been able to get the natural looking results of Nik.

Here is a quick sample...

Hi,

I am looking for a Photoshop technique to use to make the shots you
take on a grey cloudy day look like they were taken on a sunny day.

Whilst time consuming, it is relatively simple to replace a dull
cloudy sky with blue sky from another shot, or to recolour white
skies blue using the excellent new Colour Replacement tool.

That's great, but it leaves you with an unnatural looking image
with a glorious blue sky whilst the rest is dull. Does anyone have
any tips for making the rest of the picture look like it is bathed
in sunlight. Strengthening any shadows is also an issue. This would
make a great tutorial in the "Learn" section!

I'd be really pleased to learn how to do this.

--
Phil

--
My Gallery: http://www.jfranciskay.com

 

[Phil King]

James, thanks for that suggestion. I downloaded the demo and it looks excellent, may well be worth an investment. I'll have a proper play with it over the next couple of days.

--
Phil

 

[Wizard65]

Have you tried Nik Color Efex? ...

You are right on the mark, James. I have the complete set of Nik ColorEfex Pro filters and I assure you they all work as advertised. This is basic equipment to many pros. Cheers ...

the wiz

 

[Phil King]

I'm checking out the "standard" package at the moment. Are there any "essential" filters in the "select" or "complete" sets that I should look at too? I hate to buy something and wish I'd spent the extra!

Phil

Have you tried Nik Color Efex? ...

You are right on the mark, James. I have the complete set of Nik
ColorEfex Pro filters and I assure you they all work as advertised.
This is basic equipment to many pros. Cheers ...

the wiz

--
Phil

 

[Paul Cheang]

Phil

Have you tried Nik Color Efex? ...

You are right on the mark, James. I have the complete set of Nik
ColorEfex Pro filters and I assure you they all work as advertised.
This is basic equipment to many pros. Cheers ...

the wiz

--
Phil

--
PC writes:
Would you put up the link?
Paul

 

[Phil King]

The link to the product page is :

http://www.nikmultimedia.com/products/usa/entry.php

The product we're talking about is "nik Color Efex Pro 2.0".

Phil

PC writes:
Would you put up the link?
Paul

 

[Fred Luckow]

http://www.nikmultimedia.com/products/usa/entry.php

The product we're talking about is "nik Color Efex Pro 2.0".

Phil

PC writes:
Would you put up the link?
Paul

...how complex is the system? Is there still a lot of adjustments to work thru or does the filters pretty much work like a plug-in? Also I believe they work with the Wacom tablets, or is there another package you have to buy from Nik (to gain that compatibility)?
Fred

 

[digitalphoto]

Skylight and Brillance/Warmth filter are great for a cloudy day photo as well -I use and highly recommend them.
Charlotte

http://www.nikmultimedia.com/products/usa/entry.php

The product we're talking about is "nik Color Efex Pro 2.0".

Phil

PC writes:
Would you put up the link?
Paul

...how complex is the system? Is there still a lot of adjustments
to work thru or does the filters pretty much work like a plug-in?
Also I believe they work with the Wacom tablets, or is there
another package you have to buy from Nik (to gain that
compatibility)?
Fred

 

[digitalphoto]

This is free http://www.optikvervelabs.com/

Theres a sunset filter that may work good enough for you with a bit of tweaking to your liking .
Charlotte

 

[David_S85]

Yes, you could purchase a filter. Remember, just about every filter or action or script out there just relies on the native capability of your photo editor.

Let's have another look at that Fenway split-screen shot above. What's going on in the sunny photo compared with the shade photo? 1) It's brighter. 2) There is more color saturation due to the presence of the sun. 3) a few more shadows appear under the bleachers perhaps, but no filter will duplicate what the sun can do ;-)

So I did the following to just the shady swatch of the Fenway shot and overlayed it onto the sunny swatch for comparrison. Just using basic layering techniques.



1. I selected, copied the shady swatch and placed it as a new image.

2. I upped the saturation 15% without adding noise artifacts. To do this a) duplicate the background to a new layer above. b) up the saturation 15% c) use median noise at lowest setting [I used 3]. d) gaussian blur a bit 0.8? e) use blend mode 'color.' f) merge together.

3. Duplicate the newly merged 1-layer image to another layer above. a) make the above layer blend mode to 'screen.' b) reduce opacity to about 60-70%. c) merge all together again.

You should get what I got above. Not exactly the same as the filtered version, but its close enough. You could massage it more to get it closer. What I did took 3 minutes.

• David

James Kay wrote:
Have you tried Nik Color Efex? They have a sunshine filter that is
really good. Supposedly it is award winning. I have tried
different methods manually through Photoshop, but have never been
able to get the natural looking results of Nik.

 

[Phil King]

David, thanks for that idea. I've had chance to have a play, and thought you might be interested in the results.

The basic image is started with had a heavy grey sky which I replaced in Photoshop. I scaled it down to only 800px wide to make it easier on thew bandwidth. I think that made the sky look a little manufactured.

The image below I followed your instructions more or less to the letter:



This next image was using the Nik Color Efex Pro 2.0 (demo version) Sunshine filter:



Your method certainly brightened the image up, but I think the Sunshine filter made for a warmer image.

What do you think?

--
Phil

 

[David_S85]

You did real good there. Either method, it looks like you're getting the hang of it. You didn't post the original shot, so its kinda difficult to directly compare the two. The nik'ed shot appears a bit warmer, and slightly more contrasty. Of course, the addition of those steps in PS or PSP (I use PSP) are fairly easy to add to the saturation and brightening steps outlined above.

I look at each mostly finished edited version of my shots with the histogram adjust tool, and that usually allows for some fine touch-ups prior to sharpening. Color temp is also easy to move around.

For additional fun projects, one can also reverse the process to make a sunny picture (with clouds present) into a doom-looking nightmare. ;-)

Filters can be very powerful - if they allow enough room to play. I use them (but not nik) occasionally, but I'm more of a do-it-yourself'er person.

• David

Phil King wrote:
David, thanks for that idea. I've had chance to have a play, and
thought you might be interested in the results....

 

[j-coe]

Hi

Its okay using all these plug-ins but photoshop alone is more than capable. If you have photoshop cs use the Highlight/shadow tool in the image section. This will help bring out detail hidden from lack of light. Also using a combination of curves(to increase contrast and brightness) and saturation will make things better.

if you send me the image i will retouch it sending it back with a useful method.

regards

j

 

[Phill Brannon]

The new version on Nik filters lets you apply the effect in selected areas. You choose the filter and make the adjustments, then use a brush in Photoshop to add where needed.

This is free http://www.optikvervelabs.com/
Theres a sunset filter that may work good enough for you with a bit
of tweaking to your liking .
Charlotte

--
Pbase supporter

 

[Phil King]

Hi David,

Sorry, I've been away for a long weekend. Just to give you an idea of how the image started out.

Here's the camera original:



Here's the image after I made the sky blue using Photoshop CS's colour replacement tool, but the rest of the image looks out of place because it is dull :



Once again, you method using layers :



And finally, the Nik Color Effex Sunshine filter:



I will try and learn about the histogram function - it looks really powerful.

Thanks again for your help.

Phil

I look at each mostly finished edited version of my shots with the
histogram adjust tool, and that usually allows for some fine
touch-ups prior to sharpening. Color temp is also easy to move
around.

For additional fun projects, one can also reverse the process to
make a sunny picture (with clouds present) into a doom-looking
nightmare. ;-)

Filters can be very powerful - if they allow enough room to play.
I use them (but not nik) occasionally, but I'm more of a
do-it-yourself'er person.

• David

Phil King wrote:
David, thanks for that idea. I've had chance to have a play, and
thought you might be interested in the results....

--
Phil

 

[Phil King]

Thanks J - see my reply to David's post above - I've added links to the original images - so if you have time please have a play!

I have tried, and use regularly the excellent Highlight/Shadow tool - it can work wonders, and in this example it can help to bring the detail out of the shadows. But I still need to cast a warm sunlight over the image, and maybe then strengthen some shadows to simulate what real sunlight does to a scene.

There's a book called "Creative Photoshop Lighting Techniques: Master the Art of Creative Lighting Effects Using These Clearly Explained Photoshop Projects" (natty little title) by Barry Huggins, which I was browsing in a local bookshop which has a section on making dull day pictures appear sunny. It suggested using curves, but since I'm not really experienced in the curves function I didn't remember it well enough to try when I got back home.

I understand what you are saying though, that Photoshop is more than capable of doing what I need it to do, it's just a matter of investing the time in learning. The other alternative is to throw money at the problem and buy filters, but that can cost a lot over the years, and it doesn't really help you develop your skills. So I would be very interested to try the curves method.

Thanks,

Phil

Hi

Its okay using all these plug-ins but photoshop alone is more than
capable. If you have photoshop cs use the Highlight/shadow tool in
the image section. This will help bring out detail hidden from
lack of light. Also using a combination of curves(to increase
contrast and brightness) and saturation will make things better.

if you send me the image i will retouch it sending it back with a
useful method.

regards

j

--
Phil

 

[alexwz]

I use a technique to warm up and brighten and warm a picture that I got from this forum:

Duplicate background layer
image> adjustments> hue/saturation> +30%
Filter> noise> median> 6
Filter> blur> gausian 4
Blend mode of layer to color and opacity to 70%
Flatten image.

Fine tune with saturation.