Replacing Blown Skies II

[Goofup]

My original Replacing Blown Skies- The Easy Way tutorial won't work for those with Photoshop Elements (and other programs) that don’t have a Layer Properties option. I know that there’s a lot of Elements users out there so here's how to do it using Elements and masks.

I’ll use Foozen’s same image, and the same sky photo I used in the original tutorial. I did this with PE6, but it will work with older versions PE also.


1- Open your blown sky picture and your sky picture that you want to use as a replacement. These two pictures should be about the same pixel size. See the original thread for the originals if you want to use them for practice: Replacing Blown Skys- the easy way

2- Make sure your Layer Palette is open. Select your blown sky photo and duplicate the layer by either a) right-clicking on the Background layer and selecting Duplicate or b) selecting Layer/Duplicate from the menu. Now with that duplicated layer selected (click on it), convert it to BW. Doesn’t matter how (pick the Hue/Saturation option and decrease the Saturation all the way, or use the Convert to Black and White (or Grayscale) option.

3- Now select the Brightness/Contrast option and add Brightness at +10 and boost the Contrast all the way up (+100)! Do the exact same thing several more times (5 or 6) until the photo is completely black and white (no gray).

4- Select your Brush Tool, set the Foreground Color to black, and paint with black over any white pixels that should not be sky. Remember, white=background (sky), black=original picture. Here’s what you should have at this point:



5- Now add an Adjustment Layer. Actually it can be any kind, but let’s use a Brightness/Contrast layer. Either a) click on the Create Adjustment Layer icon (the half moon at the top of the Layers Palette) or just select Layer/New Adjustment Layer/ Brightness,/Contrast… in the menu and accept the default. This new layer will have a “TV” looking thing on the left and a white square on the right.

6- Now do the following:

• Click on your BW layer to select it.
• Select the whole thing (Ctrl A)
• Copy it to the clipboard (Ctrl C)
• Click on the “eyeball” on the left side to make that layer invisible.
• Click on the “eyeball” on the left side of your background (bottom) layer to make it invisible.
• Click on your Adjustment Layer to select it. You should see a nothing but a “checkerboard” with a selection around it.
• Now in that adjustment layer, Alt-click on that little white square on the right. The “checkerboard” should disappear and now be all white.
• Now select Paste from the Edit menu, or just hit Ctrl V. At this point the BW picture should be not only on your screen, but the white box in the Adjustment layer should also contain your BW picture.
• Now Ctrl D (or Select/Deselect) from the menu to unselect the picture.

You should have something like this:



We've created the mask for the sky to show through.

7- Click on the “eyeballs” of all the layers that are not lit all layers are visiable.

8- If your cloud picture isn’t already open, open it and select it. Now Ctrl A to Select All, then Ctrl C to Copy.

9- Now select your other picture and hit Ctrl V (or Edit/Paste on the menu) to paste the sky into a new layer on the top. You should see is your BW picture and the sky on top. (If the sky doesn’t cover all the white parts, just click on the cloud layer to select it and then use the Move tool to shove it around till there’s no white showing.)

10- Important step- tie the cloud layer to the mask layer. With the cloud layer selected (click on it), do a Layer/Group With Previous, or just hit Ctrl G. (Note that a little, hard to see “down arrow” shows up just to the left of the little sky layer picture.) Now you should see the sky just as it should be, but everything else is black. Now click on the “eyeball” of the BW layer to make it invisible.

11- The sky (or whatever is on the top layer) shows through the white parts of the mask, but doesn’t through the black part so we see the bottom layer (our picture).

12- However, it might not be perfect depending on your original picture. There might be some “halos” around the edges of the trees. Select the Adjustment layer by clicking on it, then adjust the Opacity (top right of the Layers Palette) slowly down until the halos go away For this one I had to reduce it to about 75%. This will lighten the sky some. Select the sky layer by clicking on it and use any of your usual editing options to make it like you want it (increase darkness, saturation, whatever) if need be. Now you should finally have something like this:



Do a Save As and save this file as a .PSD, layers and all, just in case. Next, delete the BW layer as we only needed it to make the mask. Now choose Layer/Flatten Image from the menu (or Ctrl E). At this point we have our finished picture ready to save your normal way just like any other jpeg.

This was a lot of steps, but the most complicated thing we did was paint some black over some white parts. Other than that it was just a series of copying, pasting, and clicking.

[fastpitch17]

Excellent tutorial.

I took a photo with a drab grey cloudless sky and followed your technic. This is what I ended up with. Very happy with your method. Really not that much work to it at all. As you can see, the edges and small areas filled nicely.

Thank you.

[Goofup]

Thank you very much! Looks good! I've had lots of views, but no responses good, bad, or indifferent, so I'm really glad that it worked out for you.

[jfrancho]

Link added to editing sticky

[Paul Shields]

A really useful tip goofup. I've added this to my bookmarks to try myself next time I have blown skies (which is pretty much all the time). Thanks for sharing.

[oldugly]

Goofup, Thanks. Sat through a lecture/demonstration at the local university last night. (They let us old guys audit courses for free.) The instructor went through virtually the same process you have listed. Dang, you must be a smart cookie.

[Goofup]

Thanks, but not smart... we just must've picked up on the same "trick". Glad I could pass it on to the members here.

[Lionello]

Thanks Goofup, I can think of a shot or two to try this out on.