Post processing skies

englishpremier · 1 Dec 2013 at 12:48

Just what do you do when you have blanket greyish-blue tint cloudy skies like in the image below?

This is just a section of a larger panorama that I plan to stitch together, but all images from that day have the same sky.

The usual trick is to turn down luminosity but the lack of colour in the sky means that doesn't really have much affect.

Sh4rkie · 1 Dec 2013 at 13:18

A few options, mask it out and replace it with a good sky. Or use an adjustment brush to alter the contrast, exposure, clarity, colour etc. to bring it back again. Then do some dodge / burning to give the clouds some edges.

Nexus · 1 Dec 2013 at 13:33

It's also quite a flat image, so you want to be careful as tweaking the clouds/sky too much may make it look unrealistic and jarring compared to the rest of the image.

shaggyd · 1 Dec 2013 at 13:52

You can try increasing contrast, to give the image a bit of a pop. To darken the sky, try using a burn tool with a low opacity (I use 15%) and gradually paint it darker with layered brush strokes.
Alternatively, if you have Lightroom, you can use the Highlight slider and lower the value to a negative.

King4aDay · 1 Dec 2013 at 15:27

I'd probably just go straight for a partially desaturated 'multiply' layer and blend by hand just to bring it down a touch. The buildings and sky are actually pretty close in terms of brightness so it blends pretty easily. That should bring the exposure in line with the rest of the image as a baseline for whatever other processing you want to do, but just watch out for the blend becoming noticeable if you then push the contrast.

(shout if you'd prefer me to delete the image)

Or as shaggy said, Highlight slider in Lightroom might even be sufficient.

Columbo · 1 Dec 2013 at 15:34

The ND grad tool in Lightroom is perfect for this type of stuff. The result will be a lot with a full size RAW but you get the idea from the below.

Spanish_tour-3372_zps10a78390.jpg~original

Phal · 1 Dec 2013 at 15:40

That's pretty much what I do above here - grad tool to lower highlights and boost contrast/clarity usually gives something more interesting to look at.

If you don't think a greyish sky will work with the picture though you'll have to get a bit more creative in PS and replace the sky or something.

Hyburnate · 1 Dec 2013 at 15:42

As Columbo said, the Grad Filter tool is what you're after... I found it a little fiddly at first but it works

englishpremier · 1 Dec 2013 at 16:01

Cool cheers guys, you've given me a few options to play with.

I should have added that apart from exposure, the images uploaded was unprocessed, hence looking a bit flat.