White Skies To Blue in Lightroom ?

K

kinchy

Guest
Hello all,

I have just taken a set of photos but the sky was comletely white and it frankly looks a bit crap.
Is there an easy way in Lightroom (or at a push PS CS3, but i prefer Lightroom) to make the sky a different colour.
I want to add a bit of blue, but cant find out how to do it

Ta for any advice.

P.S here is a photo i was talking about :

254695521_HiWVy-XL.jpg
 
Lightroom is ok for adjusting the pic as a whole but if you want to do something with just one area you're better off doing it in PS.

I'd try and replace the sky completely with something else. It shouldn't be too hard to do as the sky is quite blown compared to the rest of the pic so it should be easy to select!

Nice horse btw :)
 
It all depends on if there was any blue in the orriginal. If there was then you can do something about it , otherwise it's a job for Photoshop.

This technique is best done on RAW files as you have a larger dynamic range than with jpegs.

Load up you image and get the overall exposure and balance corrected, if you have to.

Then in the develop module go to the Hue Saturation and Luminance panel

Select luminance and drag the blue slider to the left. You'll see any blue in the picture darken. Watch out for non sky blue changing as well. You may not want this to happen, so use with care. Don't overdo the this control as you can very easily distort the image, and add lots of blue channel noise.

You can use this technique to modify other colours as well.

If you now use the Vibrance control or the Saturation control be careful that you don't over do the effect. Its probably a good idea to use these first if you are going to
 
Just another thought. Looking at you picture it wouldn't be to difficult to add a weak blue sky.

Try using the new selection tool,in CS3, or even the extract tool. The latter is great for areas that have hair and fine detail in them . If you've never used the extract tool, go to Photoshopusertv and look up episode 118 ( just checked) for a tutorial

Even got the link for you

http://www.photoshopusertv.com/photoshoptv/photoshopuser-tv-episode-118-january-28-2008.html
 
Personally I'd say right the photo of and go retake it on a sunny day. You'll be a better photographer for it. Of course if theres 0 chance of you going there then try in PS but unless you have a nice blue sky I'm not sure it'll work as well as the real thing.
 
Nice one guys
I have taken all your comments on board.
The sky isnt blown, it truely was that white, no detail what soever.
So im going to watch the vid (100MB !!! so that 2 hours download at their speed) and if that doesnt work im going to scrap it and try again, its just i cant get up their all the time due to shift work

Thanks alot for the very quick response

Top Job.

:D
 
In Cs3... horse then add new layer place sky and roughly painted out sky on mask to reveal horsey picci. In my opinion Alxxx's picci looks / suits the subject better than mine.
The sky i used was only a quick low res download off web to show you what it would look like

Alexxx how did you do yours?

David
 
I selected with the magic wand everything except the sky then inverted the mask (came out better round the horse that way ) then copied a section off of one of my photos and pasted into and adjust brightness, then flattened image , then selected the washed out distant scenery and adjusted the levels to bring them out a bit more then blur tool on the edges small brush size, and then the heal brush set to lighten on the bits of the image that had become to dark (on the mask edges).
at least i think thats how i did it :thinking:
 
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