Replacing a sky – difficult situation- PS CS

A technique that I typically use to replace a washed out sky in an image with a more dramatic one is to select the sky portion of the image then do a
‘paste-into’ with a sky from one of my stock shots. This typically works well. However, I am now trying to do this with an image that has a *lot* of
bare tree branches that extend to the top of the photo. No matter how long
I try to select (or select similar) I seem to wind up with dozens of unselected gaps between the many inter-tangled branches. Does anyone have a technique for replacing a sky while at the same time insuring that something like hundreds of tree branches remain in the foreground?
Chuck

A technique that I typically use to replace a washed out sky in an image with a more dramatic one is to select the sky portion of the image then do a ‘paste-into’ with a sky from one of my stock shots. This typically works well. However, I am now trying to do this with an image that has a *lot* of bare tree branches that extend to the top of the photo. No matter how long I try to select (or select similar) I seem to wind up with dozens of unselected gaps between the many inter-tangled branches. Does anyone have a technique for replacing a sky while at the same time insuring that something like hundreds of tree branches remain in the foreground?
Chuck

On Mon, 02 May 2005 17:28:49 GMT, C Wright
wrote:

A technique that I typically use to replace a washed out sky in an image with a more dramatic one is to select the sky portion of the image then do a ‘paste-into’ with a sky from one of my stock shots. This typically works well. However, I am now trying to do this with an image that has a *lot* of bare tree branches that extend to the top of the photo. No matter how long I try to select (or select similar) I seem to wind up with dozens of unselected gaps between the many inter-tangled branches. Does anyone have a technique for replacing a sky while at the same time insuring that something like hundreds of tree branches remain in the foreground?
Chuck

have you tried layer masks?

A technique that I typically use to replace a washed out sky in an image with a more dramatic one is to select the sky portion of the image then do a ‘paste-into’ with a sky from one of my stock shots. This typically works well. However, I am now trying to do this with an image that has a *lot* of bare tree branches that extend to the top of the photo. No matter how long I try to select (or select similar) I seem to wind up with dozens of unselected gaps between the many inter-tangled branches. Does anyone have a technique for replacing a sky while at the same time insuring that something like hundreds of tree branches remain in the foreground?
Chuck

C Wright wrote:

A technique that I typically use to replace a washed out sky in an image with a more dramatic one is to select the sky portion of the image then do a ‘paste-into’ with a sky from one of my stock shots. This typically works well. However, I am now trying to do this with an image that has a *lot* of bare tree branches that extend to the top of the photo. No matter how long I try to select (or select similar) I seem to wind up with dozens of unselected gaps between the many inter-tangled branches. Does anyone have a technique for replacing a sky while at the same time insuring that something like hundreds of tree branches remain in the foreground?
Chuck

Use the blue channel for your selection. The contrast between the tree branches and the sky should be maximal in this channel.
By the way, did you ever try to simply set the mode of the fake sky layer to "darken"?

Peter

A technique that I typically use to replace a washed out sky in an image with a more dramatic one is to select the sky portion of the image then do a ‘paste-into’ with a sky from one of my stock shots. This typically works well. However, I am now trying to do this with an image that has a *lot* of bare tree branches that extend to the top of the photo. No matter how long I try to select (or select similar) I seem to wind up with dozens of unselected gaps between the many inter-tangled branches.