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Revised 05/21/10

Improving Skies

For years, those of us who entered color slide competitions always heard the comment “The sky is bald.” Digital photography has changed this, and we can now render our images in a manner much more like what we see with our eyes. A few years ago, I presented several methods for improving skies to the club, and since then, I have been working more on this subject and would like to offer the following procedures. These work in either Photoshop or Photoshop Elements, and can likely be adapted to other image editing programs. 

First, you should be aware when you’re at the scene that the sky is much brighter than the other areas of your image. Take meter readings if you’re unsure. Then, perform either or both of the following:

1.      Set your camera to use the RAW format. This captures a larger range of tonal variations than using JPEG.

2.      Take two exposures, one metered for the foreground and the other for the sky. Be sure you use a tripod; this will assist you considerably in putting the images together later. 

Back at the computer, use the following steps to create an image with a pleasing sky:

1.      If you have used RAW, open the image in Adobe Camera Raw or another converter supplied by the camera manufacturer. Adjust the settings to obtain a good range of tonalities in the foreground, and save the results. Then decrease the exposure settings by 1 to 2 stops so that the sky is a reasonable brightness without blown-out highlights, and save the results with a different file name.

2.      In Photoshop, open both RAW conversions or both JPEG exposures if you took two exposures at the site.

3.      From the lighter image, press Ctrl+A and then Ctrl+C to select and copy this image. Go to the darker image and press Ctrl+V to paste it on top of this image You now have two layers in the same file, with the lighter one on top.

4.      If you took two exposures at the scene, you need to ensure that they are exactly registered over each other. Enlarge a portion of the scene and view both images by clicking the eye icon for the top layer in the Layers palette on and off. If necessary, use the arrow keys to nudge to top image exactly over the bottom one. This step is not necessary if you’ve done two conversions from a single RAW image.

5.      You should be working on the top (lighter) image. Use the magic wand tool to select the pale sky, and use other selection tools such as the lasso to add or remove areas as needed so that the sky is completely selected but nothing else is selected.

6.      To soften the selection edges, click Select > Modify > Expand, enter a value of 1 pixel, and click OK. Then click Select > Feather, enter a value of 1 or 2 pixels, and click OK. Then click Select > Inverse so that everything but the sky is selected.

7.      In the Layers palette, select the “Add layer mask” icon (the third one from the left, with a white circle on a dark gray background). This masks the pale sky out so that the darker sky from the lower image becomes visible. You will see a layer mask in the Layers palette with white on the foreground and black in the sky. Remember that white reveals and black conceals; therefore, the white (foreground) areas in the top layer remain visible while the black (sky) areas in this layer are hidden so that the darker sky beneath shows through.

8.      This is almost your final image, but if you zoom in on the horizon, you will likely notice banding or other irregularities, especially where details such as tree branches and leaves break the horizon. To improve the appearance of these areas, use the Gaussian Blur tool on the layer mask (ensure that the mask shows a selection border around it in the layers palette before selecting Filter > Blur > Gaussian Blur). Blur the entire mask with a small radius (2 or 3 pixels) to improve hard lines such as roofs of buildings. Then use the lasso to select areas such as tree branches and repeat the Gaussian blur with a larger radius. You can observe the effect by zooming in on a small part of your image. If you use too great a blur, you will see a “halo” around the affected parts of the image. Toggle the blur on and off with the Preview check box in the Gaussian Blur dialog box (or afterwards in the History palette) to observe the effect.

9.      You might need to partially hide foreground areas (such as water that reflects the bright sky) that are too bright in the light image. You can do so by painting black on the layer mask with an opacity of 25 to 50 percent. Observe the effect on the entire image of a zoomed-in portion, or on the layer mask by holding down Alt and clicking on the mask in the Layers palette. This procedure renders such areas to a brightness darker than that of the original light (foreground) image but darker than that of the dark (sky) image.

Before	After

Improving Skies in Photoshop, part 2

In the first part of this series, I showed you how you can improve a bright sky by stacking two versions of a single image on top of each other and masking out the bright sky in the top (foreground) layer so that the sky in the bottom (darkened, sky) layer shows through. Often, you will encounter an overcast sky that shows some cloud detail, but is still somewhat “blah.” In such a case, you can use an adjustment layer to bring out the detail in the clouds. Take, for example, a scene that I photographed in Texas last spring at the height of the wildflower bloom:

After using last month’s procedure to darken the sky, I obtained the following:

This image shows improved detail in the sky, but you can make it even more dramatic by applying a Curves adjustment layer to the sky. Use the following procedure, which you should do before completing manipulations in steps 9-10 of last month’s procedure:

1. In the Layers palette, make sure the background (sky) layer is active, and click the new adjustment layer icon (fourth from left, diagonal black/white circle).
2. From the menu that appears, select Curves. The Curves dialog box appears.
3. Move the cursor across the sky (it becomes an eyedropper icon) and locate the brightest point in the sky. Ctrl-click here. This places a black point on the curve, near the top right corner.
4. Use the up arrow to make this point slightly brighter (one or two clicks will suffice in most cases). This makes the curve concave upwards.
5. Move the cursor and locate a darker point in the sky. Ctrl-click to place another black point on the curve.
6. Use the down arrow to make this point darker. Watch as you do this – the sky will become more contrasty and dramatic as you do so. Do not worry about what is happening to the foreground because this part of this layer is hidden by the upper layer in the finished image. Your Curves dialog box will look similar to the following: (in which the steeper area between the points shows that contrast has been increased through the range of tonalities present in the sky)

7. Perform additional manipulations as desired according to steps 9 and 10 of the previous procedure. In my case, the following is the final result:

At times, I have also used a Levels adjustment layer, though this does not provide the same amount of control. For a sky with some blue in it, you can add a Hue/Saturation adjustment layer to further improve the sky color. You can also use a Color Balance adjustment layer to add blue and cyan to the sky. Ensure that all adjustment layers are masked to affect the sky only.