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Replacing Skies?
My first post in the new forum  Any tricks you pros can give me for replacing the sky in a photo? Mainly a trick for intersecting the new sky with trees? I have a shot of the sky I want to use but I was wondering if there are any short cuts for blending it with trees in the background. FYI if you need to know the original sky is blown out. Thanks May 26 09 01:35 pm Link I seem to recall seeing something along those lines on the Russel Brown web site a few years back. Have a poke around. http://www.russellbrown.com/ May 26 09 01:37 pm Link What are the odds of seeing the image? The odds are you can do it with blending modes if the entire sky is totally blown out, but without the image being up it's only a guess. May 26 09 01:41 pm Link A slice of oblivion wrote: Ok I can put it up. May 26 09 01:42 pm Link I've done it before with blending modes, but now that I'm trying it... I just can't find that magic combination. Maybe try dropping in a curves adjustment layer, darkening the whole thing so that only the sky is visible (or mostly), then CTRL/COMD+ click the RGB channel to create a selection. Use that selection to create a mask on the new sky layer and then turn off the curves layer. You will still need to go in and do some manual brushwork, but that should get you most of the way there. May 26 09 02:24 pm Link Blend-If sliders in the Layer Style's Blending Option dialog are a great way to get close very quickly, especially if the sky is entirely blown out: Blend-if based on gray. Use of channel-based masks can also work well. But it still comes down to attention to detail, and proper edge handling. May 26 09 02:30 pm Link I would select the blown out sky using the least amount of spread that gives you the bulk of the sky and create a mask from the selection. Paint in the areas around the trees with 10% opacity with 30% flow using a high magnification. Reverse the mask and drop the new sky in as a layer behind it. May 26 09 06:18 pm Link The real struggle will be around the trees. Lots of layers and blending to keep it from looking cut out. And probably some hand drawing of leaves and branches over the composite to add little details. May 26 09 06:21 pm Link Thanks for all the suggestions. Don't laugh but I did try it in the most simple way. I outlined the the sky and all around the top of the sculpture. The clouds had formed back and I shot a sample of the sky from the same day and location for something to replace. After I outlined the top of the photo and around the trees I just painted-cloned the sky in that area I did some tweaking around the trees and the sculpture. It was quick so I know it probably sucks.  May 27 09 04:39 am Link Just a quick glance at the edited version... Over the statue of the female, in the trees, you can see the white between the branches that was not replaced with the new sky. May 27 09 06:48 am Link This would have been a good place to shoot for HDR with bracketed exposures from the same point of reference. May 27 09 12:13 pm Link Pedro P Polakoff III wrote: You read my mind. May 27 09 12:21 pm Link Pedro P Polakoff III wrote: True I did think of doing that but its a public sculpture garden(s) and you can't tell from that shot but there are people walking around there all the time. It would have been difficult. However the sky was still blown out no matter what. May 27 09 12:32 pm Link Take a look at ONone Mask Pro it is amazing what you can do with it. May 27 09 12:35 pm Link Green trees against a white sky...check your channels...I bet you'll see a nice mask there to use....it's so white you can probably copy paste the best channel into a new layer, multipy it and you'll have the mask you need... May 29 09 06:59 am Link |
