Sky advice please

PB
Posted By
Paul Burdett
Jul 7, 2004
Views
584
Replies
15
Status
Closed
Hi all,
I have photoshop 7. I took a digital image today: (link is below) ), However, as you can see, the sky (as is common) is a little washed out. I want to add more colour to the sky. I have tried using the magic wand with selective colour, and applying a gradient. Also tried using the marquee to select the area and fill with colour. This works fairly well, but the problem is that the colour is not uniformly applied…especially around the tree branches. Can someone recommend a possible solution or online tutorial (I have searched via Google)

http://images.fotopic.net/?iid=y3eumm&outx=600&nores ize=1&nostamp=1

Cheers,
Paul

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M
Mikey
Jul 7, 2004
On 2004-07-07 06:01:03 -0400, "Paul Burdett" said:

Hi all,
I have photoshop 7. I took a digital image today: (link is below) ), However, as you can see, the sky (as is common) is a little washed out. I want to add more colour to the sky. I have tried using the magic wand with selective colour, and applying a gradient. Also tried using the marquee to select the area and fill with colour. This works fairly well, but the problem is that the colour is not uniformly applied…especially around the tree branches. Can someone recommend a possible solution or online tutorial (I have searched via Google)

http://images.fotopic.net/?iid=y3eumm&outx=600&nores ize=1&nostamp=1
Cheers,
Paul

There’s not much there to work with..but it’s worth a try. Select the sky, it shouldn’t be too difficult. There’s a lot of contrast between the sky and those trees and poles, so the magic wand should work fine. Once it’s selected, you want to try and enhance the detail as much as possible. I’d try both the Levels and the Curves. Personally, I’d go for the Curves. See if you can stretch out the range of the sky, and then increase the contrast to make it stand out. Probably you’ll end up darkening whatever cloud detail is already there. You may want to pump up the saturation as well.

If there’s simply no detail to work with, you could try rendering clouds with the filter. This will take a lot of experimentation.

I’ll email you some examples

No sig, no neuroses
M
Mikey
Jul 7, 2004
On 2004-07-07 06:01:03 -0400, "Paul Burdett" said:

Hi all,
I have photoshop 7. I took a digital image today: (link is below) ), However, as you can see, the sky (as is common) is a little washed out. I want to add more colour to the sky. I have tried using the magic wand with selective colour, and applying a gradient. Also tried using the marquee to select the area and fill with colour. This works fairly well, but the problem is that the colour is not uniformly applied…especially around the tree branches. Can someone recommend a possible solution or online tutorial (I have searched via Google)

http://images.fotopic.net/?iid=y3eumm&outx=600&nores ize=1&nostamp=1
Cheers,
Paul

Ooh-fah. I take it back. I took a shot, and there’s almost no detail in the sky except for the jpeg artifacts. You can definitely select it and use the Levels to bring out the color and add some range – but it’s not great. I’m not so sure it’s a real problem in the shot, however. Do you really need anything in this sky?

No sig, no neuroses
D
dsouzl
Jul 7, 2004
Hi Paul,

You can "fake" the sky a couple of different ways.

1) You can render clouds (easy)

http://www.pbase.com/image/31057072

2) You can replace the sky with a more interesting sky photo (harder)

http://www.pbase.com/image/31058777

I basically used the magic wand to select most of the sky. Then used Select->Silimar to increase the selection.

The above images took about 5 minutes to do. Your milage will vary depending on the amount of effort you put into cleaning up your selections!

In the second image, I also went over the treed area with the blur tool to make it look a litte less fake! If you’re a patient individual, you should zoom in and clean up the jaggie areas properly (cloning, healing, burning, and dodging).

Hope that helps.

…Lew..

http://www.pbase.com/dsouzl
NE
no_email
Jul 7, 2004
On Wed, 7 Jul 2004 20:01:03 +1000, "Paul Burdett" wrote:

Hi all,
I have photoshop 7. I took a digital image today: (link is below) ), However, as you can see, the sky (as is common) is a little washed out. I want to add more colour to the sky. I have tried using the magic wand with selective colour, and applying a gradient. Also tried using the marquee to select the area and fill with colour. This works fairly well, but the problem is that the colour is not uniformly applied…especially around the tree branches. Can someone recommend a possible solution or online tutorial (I have searched via Google)

http://images.fotopic.net/?iid=y3eumm&outx=600&nores ize=1&nostamp=1
Cheers,
Paul
I know this is not the answer you are looking for…:If you purchased a circular polarized filter you would get a lot better results whenever the sky is in a shot. Better quality in-better out.
J
jrzyguy
Jul 7, 2004
I had pretty good luck using the Select/Color Range tool to mask the sky area. R u familiar with this tool? it works for the most part in this photo. I was affraid that i it would pick up some of the water…..but it didnt…and it worked great for isolating the sky from the trees. After i used color range…i had some very minor clean up using the deselect lasso. But then i had a great selection that you can paste a different sky into.

hope this helps…if u dont know any of these tools…re-post and i will email ya further instructions.

jj

"Paul Burdett" wrote in message
Hi all,
I have photoshop 7. I took a digital image today: (link is below) ), However, as you can see, the sky (as is common) is a little washed out. I want to add more colour to the sky. I have tried using the magic wand with selective colour, and applying a gradient. Also tried using the marquee to select the area and fill with colour. This works fairly well, but the problem is that the colour is not uniformly applied…especially around
the
tree branches. Can someone recommend a possible solution or online
tutorial
(I have searched via Google)

http://images.fotopic.net/?iid=y3eumm&outx=600&nores ize=1&nostamp=1
Cheers,
Paul

DT
Deco_time
Jul 8, 2004
In news:Paul Burdett typed:
Hi all,
I have photoshop 7. I took a digital image today: (link is below) ), However, as you can see, the sky (as is common) is a little washed out. I want to add more colour to the sky. I have tried using the magic wand with selective colour, and applying a gradient. Also tried using the marquee to select the area and fill with colour. This works fairly well, but the problem is that the colour is not uniformly applied…especially around the tree branches. Can someone recommend a possible solution or online tutorial (I have searched via Google)
http://images.fotopic.net/?iid=y3eumm&outx=600&nores ize=1&nostamp=1
Cheers,
Paul

I generally agree with the suggestion of using a circular polarizer, although it work extremely well with film, I’ve never tried it with a digital camera. In a case like this though, I doubt it would have helped as the sky is mostly dull and featureless, and a filter won’t add features where there is none.
You’ve had good suggestion on different method for replacing the sky, the better option in a case like this I think, I just want to add one more: it help a lot, when working on a specific portion of an image, to roughly select it and copy it to it’s own layer, then turning of the visibility for the others layers you might have. It makes it easier to concentrate on the portion of image that need attention, and you’re sure the selecting mechanism won’t run astray on unwanted portion of the image.
I did this while typing to add to other for ideas,
www3.sympatico.ca/mlb01/boats2.jpg
although the jpg artifact were quite bad on the original and made the selection more difficult than it should be.


www.odysea.ca
PB
Paul Burdett
Jul 8, 2004
"Mikey" wrote in message
On 2004-07-07 06:01:03 -0400, "Paul Burdett"
said:
Hi all,
I have photoshop 7. I took a digital image today: (link is below) ), However, as you can see, the sky (as is common) is a little washed out.
I
want to add more colour to the sky. I have tried using the magic wand
with
selective colour, and applying a gradient. Also tried using the marquee
to
select the area and fill with colour. This works fairly well, but the problem is that the colour is not uniformly applied…especially around
the
tree branches. Can someone recommend a possible solution or online
tutorial
(I have searched via Google)

http://images.fotopic.net/?iid=y3eumm&outx=600&nores ize=1&nostamp=1
Cheers,
Paul

Ooh-fah. I take it back. I took a shot, and there’s almost no detail in the sky except for the jpeg artifacts. You can definitely select it and use the Levels to bring out the color and add some range – but it’s not great. I’m not so sure it’s a real problem in the shot, however. Do you really need anything in this sky?

No sig, no neuroses

Mikey: Many thanks for the info..it is much appreciated! Paul
PB
Paul Burdett
Jul 8, 2004
"dsouzl" wrote in message
Hi Paul,

You can "fake" the sky a couple of different ways.
1) You can render clouds (easy)

http://www.pbase.com/image/31057072

2) You can replace the sky with a more interesting sky photo (harder)
http://www.pbase.com/image/31058777

I basically used the magic wand to select most of the sky. Then used Select->Silimar to increase the selection.

The above images took about 5 minutes to do. Your milage will vary depending on the amount of effort you put into cleaning up your
selections!
In the second image, I also went over the treed area with the blur tool to make it look a litte less fake! If you’re a patient individual, you
should
zoom in and clean up the jaggie areas properly (cloning, healing, burning, and dodging).

Hope that helps.

..Lew..

http://www.pbase.com/dsouzl

Lew: Thank you so much for your info and efforts…I really like what you did to the image…I’ve since managed to improve it myself using the "select">"colour range" tool. However, I’ll now try your suggestions…I really appreciate the time you’ve taken to help me. It is much appreciated! Regards,
Paul
GF
G_F
Jul 8, 2004
Hi Dsouzl,

The replacing sky method looks to me the best way to emphasis the contrast of sky and the result shown looks convincing. I personnaly do the same. But, all of this to say that your gallery is absolutely wanderfull. (I wish I could get the same T-Shirt like the one in Puzzled, I’ve so great memorie of Toranto)

All the best,

G
PB
Paul Burdett
Jul 8, 2004
Hi: Thank you for the info, it is much appreciated. yes, I managed to get the Select>colour range to improve the sky.
Many thanks,
Paul

"jrzyguy" wrote in message
I had pretty good luck using the Select/Color Range tool to mask the sky area. R u familiar with this tool? it works for the most part in this photo. I was affraid that i it would pick up some of the water…..but it didnt…and it worked great for isolating the sky from the trees. After i used color range…i had some very minor clean up using the deselect
lasso.
But then i had a great selection that you can paste a different sky into.
hope this helps…if u dont know any of these tools…re-post and i will email ya further instructions.

jj

"Paul Burdett" wrote in message
Hi all,
I have photoshop 7. I took a digital image today: (link is below) ), However, as you can see, the sky (as is common) is a little washed out.
I
want to add more colour to the sky. I have tried using the magic wand
with
selective colour, and applying a gradient. Also tried using the marquee
to
select the area and fill with colour. This works fairly well, but the problem is that the colour is not uniformly applied…especially around
the
tree branches. Can someone recommend a possible solution or online
tutorial
(I have searched via Google)

http://images.fotopic.net/?iid=y3eumm&outx=600&nores ize=1&nostamp=1
Cheers,
Paul

PB
Paul Burdett
Jul 8, 2004
"Deco_time" wrote in message
In news:Paul Burdett typed:
Hi all,
I have photoshop 7. I took a digital image today: (link is below) ), However, as you can see, the sky (as is common) is a little washed out. I want to add more colour to the sky. I have tried using the magic wand with selective colour, and applying a gradient. Also tried using the marquee to select the area and fill with colour. This works fairly well, but the problem is that the colour is not uniformly applied…especially around the tree branches. Can someone recommend a possible solution or online tutorial (I have searched via Google)
http://images.fotopic.net/?iid=y3eumm&outx=600&nores ize=1&nostamp=1
Cheers,
Paul

I generally agree with the suggestion of using a circular polarizer, although it work extremely well with film, I’ve never tried it with a digital camera. In a case like this though, I doubt it would have helped as the sky is mostly dull and featureless, and a filter won’t add features where there is none.
You’ve had good suggestion on different method for replacing the sky, the better option in a case like this I think, I just want to add one more: it help a lot, when working on a specific portion of an image, to roughly select it and copy it to it’s own layer, then turning of the visibility for the others layers you might have. It makes it easier to concentrate on the portion of image that need attention, and you’re sure the selecting mechanism won’t run astray on unwanted portion of the image.
I did this while typing to add to other for ideas,
www3.sympatico.ca/mlb01/boats2.jpg
although the jpg artifact were quite bad on the original and made the selection more difficult than it should be.


www.odysea.ca

Hi,
Thank you so much for the info and your great sky improvement to the image…I really like it. I do have a polarizer, but didn’t have it with me on the day (silly me). I’m now going to try out all the ideas suggested by you and others.
Cheers,
Paul
NE
no_email
Jul 8, 2004
On Thu, 8 Jul 2004 00:17:58 -0400, "Deco_time" wrote:

I generally agree with the suggestion of using a circular polarizer, although it work extremely well with film, I’ve never tried it with a digital camera. In a case like this though, I doubt it would have helped as the sky is mostly dull and featureless, and a filter won’t add features where there is none.

True. However in my defense, I looked at the sky the same way I look at the one here in the Puget Sound area. A little bit of haze can make a fairly blue sky quite colorless on film.

You’ve had good suggestion on different method for replacing the sky, the better option in a case like this I think, I just want to add one more: it help a lot, when working on a specific portion of an image, to roughly select it and copy it to it’s own layer, then turning of the visibility for the others layers you might have. It makes it easier to concentrate on the portion of image that need attention, and you’re sure the selecting mechanism won’t run astray on unwanted portion of the image.
I did this while typing to add to other for ideas,
www3.sympatico.ca/mlb01/boats2.jpg
although the jpg artifact were quite bad on the original and made the selection more difficult than it should be.


www.odysea.ca

BV
Big V
Jul 8, 2004
If the sky is all white (or mostly) try adding a cloud layer under the washed out layer and playing with the blend mode. Double click the top layer and adjust the "Blend if—grey" sliders. Alt + click on the triangles will separate the sliders for more control.

"Paul Burdett" wrote in message
Hi all,
I have photoshop 7. I took a digital image today: (link is below) ), However, as you can see, the sky (as is common) is a little washed out. I want to add more colour to the sky. I have tried using the magic wand with selective colour, and applying a gradient. Also tried using the marquee to select the area and fill with colour. This works fairly well, but the problem is that the colour is not uniformly applied…especially around
the
tree branches. Can someone recommend a possible solution or online
tutorial
(I have searched via Google)

http://images.fotopic.net/?iid=y3eumm&outx=600&nores ize=1&nostamp=1
Cheers,
Paul

H
Hecate
Jul 9, 2004
On Thu, 8 Jul 2004 00:17:58 -0400, "Deco_time" wrote:

In news:Paul Burdett typed:
Hi all,
I have photoshop 7. I took a digital image today: (link is below) ), However, as you can see, the sky (as is common) is a little washed out. I want to add more colour to the sky. I have tried using the magic wand with selective colour, and applying a gradient. Also tried using the marquee to select the area and fill with colour. This works fairly well, but the problem is that the colour is not uniformly applied…especially around the tree branches. Can someone recommend a possible solution or online tutorial (I have searched via Google)
http://images.fotopic.net/?iid=y3eumm&outx=600&nores ize=1&nostamp=1
Cheers,
Paul

I generally agree with the suggestion of using a circular polarizer, although it work extremely well with film, I’ve never tried it with a digital camera. In a case like this though, I doubt it would have helped as the sky is mostly dull and featureless, and a filter won’t add features where there is none.

Firstly, it doesn’t matter whether you’re using film or digital. Secondly, if it was a dull sky and not a hazy blue one, then there wouldn’t be sunshine and heavy cast shadows as an overcast sky acts like a diffuser and gives you soft shadows.
Thirdly, if you use a polarizer on a blue sky that’s hazy you will increase the colour in the sky (thought you have to be careful because the variation will increase across the surface of the lens giving you a darker blue in the image corners – particularly with a wide angle).



Hecate

veni, vidi, reliqui
C
Chris
Jul 9, 2004
Ya know, if I have to deepen a section of my picture, ie sky, ocean, or grass I color burn with with New Fill Layer. I start with black and slowly adjust up until all looks good. This trick keeps the natural color trasistions. I find this works very well for me.

Cheers,
Chris

On Wed, 7 Jul 2004 20:01:03 +1000, "Paul Burdett" wrote:

Hi all,
I have photoshop 7. I took a digital image today: (link is below) ), However, as you can see, the sky (as is common) is a little washed out. I want to add more colour to the sky. I have tried using the magic wand with selective colour, and applying a gradient. Also tried using the marquee to select the area and fill with colour. This works fairly well, but the problem is that the colour is not uniformly applied…especially around the tree branches. Can someone recommend a possible solution or online tutorial (I have searched via Google)

http://images.fotopic.net/?iid=y3eumm&outx=600&nores ize=1&nostamp=1
Cheers,
Paul

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