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Posted on 22/06/08 9:42:28 PM |
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ray laws
* Posts: 16 Reply |
New Sky
I have photo (A) with poor sky. Would like to replace with a good sky Photo (B) I used to know how to do it,its fairly straight forward, but I've forgotten how. Any easy ideas very much appreciated, thanks ray |
Posted on 22/06/08 11:29:31 PM |
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vibeke
Kreative Kiwi Posts: 2166 Reply  |
Re: New Sky
Select the sky in photo A the select the sky in Photo B - copy Paste into Photo A (where the sky is still selected) Next use Free Transform, to get the size and placement right. |
Posted on 24/06/08 06:22:16 AM |
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Nick Curtain
Model Master Posts: 1768 Reply  |
Re: New Sky
Ray I would suggest that the approach you use very much depends on the image into which the sky is to be placed and how much detail is present in the existing sky. A simple seascape, for example, with an even horizon is a different ballgame to an image full of intricate detail, such as trees. If you have a plain grey sky, a simple approach is to move the new sky into the image and change the blend mode to multiply. Add a layer mask to the sky layer and paint using black to remove the sky where not wanted. With a simple horizon, a good way is to use a black/white gradient on the mask. Hold down the shift key to ensure a true horizontal and drag from just above to just below the horizon. Make sure you drag downwards using white to black to ensure to lower portion, i.e. the land is revealed. Picking up on Vibeke's suggestion, for an intricate scene it's a good idea to use channels to help you in the task. Choose the channel with the most contrast and drag it to the new channel icon to duplicate it. With the new copy channel active, go to Levels and use the black eyedropper to force the land and trees etc to black. Use the white eyedropper to force the sky to white. If there is detail in the sky area that you don't want, then you can clean up the channel using a white paintbrush. It's a good idea to set the blend mode of the brush to overlay because when you paint with black photoshop will only apply paint to the darker pixels and the reverse applies to white and the lighter pixels. Ensure all the land etc is black and the sky area is completely white. Once the channel is cleaned up, load it as a selection by Ctrl clicking on its name and feather the selection by between 0.5 and say 2 pixels, depending on the resolution of the file. Return to the composite channel. Paste in the new sky (Edit / Paste Into) and reposition the sky as you wish. The new sky will appear with its own layer mask and the feathering you applied to the original selection will allow you to adjust the mask to 'choke' the fine detail. Using Levels on the mask, experiment with the input level sliders and you'll see the mask losen and tighten around the detail. I hope this helps. Nick |
Posted on 25/06/08 9:51:45 PM |
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ray laws
* Posts: 16 Reply |
Re: New Sky
Thanks people I'll try both suggestions, Much appreciated, Ray |
Posted on 25/06/08 10:09:04 PM |
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ray laws
* Posts: 16 Reply |
Re: New Sky
Made a copy of the poor sky.Ctrl+J. Made a selection of the poor sky, feathered it by 20,then edit & cut the selection. Created a new layer. Loaded the good sky, ctrl+A, copied and pasted into original photo. Moved the copy of the original photo to the top of the layer stack, transformed size to suit, and then adjusted the opacity of the new sky to suit.Happy happy. |
Posted on 26/06/08 05:22:45 AM |
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Nick Curtain
Model Master Posts: 1768 Reply |
Re: New Sky
Ray I'm glad it worked for you. Once the selection is made from the channel, you merely use that to 'paste into' and this will place your new sky on a new layer with its own mask, so there is no need to copy the original sky. A feather of 20 sounds quite a lot, even for a high res image, did you mean 2? Nick |
Posted on 26/06/08 10:06:13 PM |
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ray laws
* Posts: 16 Reply |
Re: New Sky
Nick, your quite right, feathering 20 is too high. Feathering by 2 is far better, many thanks |