How to Replace a Sky in Photoshop

I have often found myself thinking, “this photo is really missing something”.  I have developed my own little method of replacing skies, and you might do it this way too! Either way keep reading! You might ask, why would you bother replacing the sky? Because, there are just some pictures that look better with clouds! Some photos need a little extra punch. Whether the sky was clear that day (like in my example) or you’ve blown it out trying to expose for your subject, I will show you my own method for replacing that sky in Photoshop.  Here are some before and after pictures where I have replaced the sky:

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After

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Now for my process.  First, bring your photo into Photoshop.  After making all your basic adjustments observe what kind of light is in your photo.  Is it hard light? Is it soft? Is it back light, or side light or midday light? In this photo you can see that it is midday and very hard light.  So obviously a back light sunset is not going to work for this photo.  I chose a cloud overlay from Jessica Drossin, but you can even use your own if you want!  Go ahead and bring the overlay into your work space on Photoshop. Place the clouds where you think they would look the best.  Then turn off your new cloud overlay layer by clicking the eyeball next to the layer.  Then go to channels.  Select all your channels by clicking the RGB channel.  Now drag your RGB channel to the little marching ants circle at the bottom right of your screen.  Like this:

Now go back to your layers and turn back on your cloud overlay.  Then click the masking tool to add a mask, seen here:

After that it should look something like this:

Now this is the part where you panic and say, “WHAT HAVE I DONE!!!!” It’s OK.  Do not panic.  It’s going to look a little weird.  At this point, by masking the channels it has given you a good start.  The rest is going to be by hand.  Paint in your masking layer with a soft black brush at 100%.  Make sure to cover all your subject’s skin and hair and the ground.  Make sure there are no hard edges where your overlay ends. Use different opacity brushes to get around your subject if needed.  

Next is just fine tuning.  Sometimes the sky needs lightened. So, I usually lower the opacity to make it blend better.  Sometimes, it will need more contrast.  Sometimes you will need to darken your subject to make it look right. I usually use a curves adjustment layer to do this. In this example I felt like it needed more contrast. So, I added a contrast and vibrance layer (as I felt it was getting a little desaturated).  

Here is the before and after of my example image:

Before

After

This WILL NOT WORK EVERY TIME.  Sometimes you have a picture that you just can’t make this kind of selection.  Or sometimes it just looks weird.  Sometimes you need to try out a few different skies.  Whatever the case is, this is the best way I know how to select around your subject and blend the sky into all those tree branches.  Please give this a try!! And if you do, please share it with me!! I’d love to see what you’ve done! Thanks for reading!

How to Photograph a Silhouette

A silhouette is where your subject is mostly or completely dark and the light behind the subject is exposed correctly. Silhouettes are very easy to photograph.  

First, put your camera in Manual mode if you haven’t already done so.  This will help you to expose behind your subject rather than for your subject. If you are in automatic mode, make sure your flash is turned off.  

Next you need to place your subject with light behind them.  This can be a sky or if you are looking out from a building, cave or alleyway that will work too.  You will just need light behind them. Then expose properly for the light behind them.  If you are in auto mode you will want to point the camera at the brightest part of your picture, so it will meter for your light source rather than your subject. This will severely underexpose your subject.  Which is exactly what you want.  When looking through your viewfinder or on your screen if you are in live view mode, you will want to check your light meter.  Make sure it is reading 0, and you are not blowing out the sky or light source.  You can get away with underexposing quite a bit as long as you are not losing detail in your sky.

There are a few things to think about.  It helps to have a recognizable shape.  So, if you are photographing a person it helps if their limbs are visible.  The simpler the better! Don’t be afraid to increase the contrast in post processing.  You can even play around with the colors that you have captured to make your silhouettes stand out even more.  It helps to shoot in raw to really bring out those details. 

Try it out! This simple technique can really give you new possibilities with your photography.

Thanks for reading.

How to Enhance a Sky in Lightroom

First off, I would say you need to start with a good image right out of the camera.  This idea took my photography to the next level. I wanted to take whatever pictures I could and then go edit them in photoshop.  While this was fun and helped me to learn a ton about photoshop, it wasn’t until I took my technical skills seriously that I really saw a difference in my photography.  So, for an amazing sky you need to expose the picture properly.  I prefer shooting in raw now, but I didn’t when I was starting out.  I found that the constraint of a jpeg helped motivate me to get a better picture in camera.  Now that I think about it, that probably wasn’t the norm!

I have three examples of a sky that I enhanced in Lightroom. Here is the first one sooc (straight out of camera). 

This one is shot closer to blue hour. The sun was down, and it was already very dark.  In hind sight I should have had my shutter speed up and ISO up as well (since there is a bit of motion blur).  However, I was in a hurry because I was losing light. I still love the sky. So I do my regular adjustments first.  Then to enhance the sky I look at the colors that are already there. I use the brush tool, and I adjust the temperature and tint to give a more golden tone.  Then I use a soft brush to paint the areas where the light is coming through.

Next, I use a new brush to paint over the whole sky (carefully going around my subject).  Here, I increase the contrast, and the clarity.  I also lower the exposer and dehaze it slightly. After I have done that, I lighten the exposure of my foreground just slightly to make it look more natural.  You don’t want to go overboard with that part though.  It will not look right if you have a gorgeous sunset sky and a foreground and subject that looks like they’re lightened to be midday.  So just be careful with that part.  I try to make many small and subtle changes.  I don’t want to add what is not already there.

Here is the final image after all my adjustments.

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In the second picture I have exposed properly for the sky.  Here is the image sooc.

After doing my regular adjustments I use the brush tool again and go over the whole sky.  I lower the exposure, increase the contrast, increase the clarity and increase the saturation.  I don’t often use the saturation slider as it can easily get out of control, but for this one I think it worked well.

Here is the final image after adjustments.

For this last one, I exposed for my subject.  Even though I underexposed slightly I still blew out some of the sky.

So, for this one I made my usual adjustments and then I went in with the brush tool.  I painted over the whole sky and lowered the exposure significantly. I also increased the contrast and warmed up the temperature/tint.

You could then see the rays of light coming from behind the clouds.  I decided I wanted to enhance that part.  So, I used the radial filter and put one right on top of the main light source (the sun).  I increased the temperature and the tint. Make sure that when you are using a radial filter that you click the invert button, or it will affect the entire picture other than where you put the filter. I use this often when enhancing light.

Here is my final image.

I hope you have enjoyed my tutorial! Please feel free to contact me with any questions you might have!