Sky Color

[Mike Lamb]

I'd like to change the sky with another sky or another color in this image. Any suggestions would be appreciated. There's a lot of tree branches to deal with.

I'm using the Elements 7 trial software.

[veejayr]

You don't have much sky to work with and those branches would make it a very tedious exercise to try to select around. There's a tool in the "Quick Edit" area that might help.

Open your image in the Editor and then click on "Quick" in the upper right of the screen. At the very bottom of the screen, in the Touch Up section, the third tool from the left is "Make Dull Skies Bluer." Increase the magnification of the image and then brush where you'd like to affect the color.

It's not perfect, and depending on what you're going to do with the image, it may not work at all, but give it a try.

[vawitt]

http://www.alibony.com/video/video-lesson12.htm

Try this video. It works great! Karen (the video author) also gives a link to several "sky" photos you can use.

Here's a quick try with your small sample.

http://www.pixentral.com/hosted/1TtzrPp1WhIitXQjj0pw4s5p4RW1_thumb.jpg (http://www.pixentral.com/show.php?picture=1TtzrPp1WhIitXQjj0pw4s5p4RW1)

[Martha]

This tutorial contains a technique that I had not used before and it works very well for some photos.
Martha
http://www.flickr.com/groups/496435@N20/discuss/72157612933159278/
http://www.flickr.com/groups/pse/discuss/72157613670160782/#comment72157613671350273

[ljameso1]

I've also had good luck with this technique: Add a levels adjustment layer and bring the highlight slider to the left until sky goes stark white and click ok. Use the magic wand set at a low number and with contiguous unchecked to select the sky. Save your selection and trash the levels layer. On a new layer with the selection active either paste in another sky or run a gradient(I've saved a simple pastel gradient that I adjusted to give me a series of sky blue tones. If any other areas of the pic get turned blue, just erase them from that layer.

[Sonita]

Yesterday I did the technique from Alibony, and it works great. Quick and Easy.

[Mike Lamb]

Thanks all. I tried the tecnique Martha posted with pretty good results.

[Martha]

I'm glad it worked for you, Mike. I found it in Flickr last week and it worked really well for the photo I was trying to fix. I thought it was easier than some I had tried.
Martha

[ken1]

I tried both techniques and the Alibony technique is much less involved. The fly in the ointment is that the resolution of the sky representations that are offered for download differs from that of the native resolution of pictures out of the camera. In view of this, I made my own sky with clouds and appropriate resolution. Otherwise, I used the tutorial as demonstrated. Worked like a charm.

Light sky color C7D7EA
Dark sky color 628DC0

The Return to Eden cloud brushes from the Studio Exchange are excellent.
Require white foreground color.

http://www.adobe.com/cfusion/exchange/index.cfm?searchfield=cloud+brushes&search_exchange=16&search_category=-1&search_license=&search_rating=&search_platform=0&search_pubdate=&num=25&startnum=1&event=search&sticky=true&sort=0&Submit=Search (http://www.adobe.com/cfusion/exchange/index.cfm?searchfield=cloud+brushes&search_exchange=16&search_category=-1&search_license=&search_rating=&search_platform=0&search_pubdate=&num=25&startnum=1&event=search&sticky=true&sort=0&Submit=Search)