Changing a Photographic Sky Using Adobe Photoshop Elements 7 Disclaimer: PSE is not my usual editing program. This was written in a trial version of PSE because I had a request to explain to someone how to fix a bad sky, and they were using Elements. Having been a user of PS since version 6 (currently using CS3) I found myself frustrated trying to locate the tools I would normally use some of which are apparently not included in PSE (this is only natural since there is an enormous cost difference between the two). I would normally use the quick mask function, which I wasn't able to find in PSE on my first look at it. There are a number of ways which I would go about replacing a sky in PSCS and it's generally dependent on the image. On the whole, I normally wouldn't replace the sky in an image that has a lot of trees, branches and other small details abutting the sky since it's time consuming. On occasion I might find myself having to do this because the image cannot be retaken, but usually I will take such an image with three separate exposures giving me a variety of options for control over the sky. Using a filter during shooting is helpful too. The image I selected for use in this tutorial is an image with a lot of tree branches and leaves, and other small details against a white sky; I selected this because it is a difficult image to work on. I also chose the imported sky to purposely not match the colour and toning of the original. The idea was to make the problem areas easy to see for beginners. The method used in this tutorial is likely one seasoned users may find clunky, but the tutorial is not written for users familiar with the more advanced editing techniques. Using this tutorial, beginners will soon move on to trying other methods to achieve the same or similar results. To begin: Open your document (choose one with an overexposed sky, and not too many details if you can) and duplicate the layer. PSE contains an auto tool that you can try first, though seldom will an auto tool fix this kind of image the smart brush tool
The smart brush is the little tool shown on the tool pallette that looks like a brush with a gear beside it. When you click on it there are a number of options you can select. One of the options is called Blue Skies. When you use that it will attempt to create a blue sky from the colour in your image in the case of the image I used, there really isn't anything the smart brush can help, though an image that has a faded blue sky might benefit from trying this tool as a starting point. You can see from the image below that there was a little cyan in the picture data the smart brush attempted to fix the sky using cyan while this might be a satisfactory quick fix for images with better skies that the image I used, it isn't a satisfactory sky for our purposes.
You will not that the smart brush created a new layer for the sky. Since we aren't happy with this, we'll delete that layer. Right click on the layer that shows the black and white image with the blue triangle, and select delete layer. Now we're still left with our two layers the background and the background copy. Next we're going to begin removing the sky from the background copy layer. To see what we're doing, we're going to turn off the visibility on the background layer (the one on the bottom with the little lock on the right hand side). To turn off the visibility (this doesn't remove the layer, it just makes it invisible) click on the little eye on the left hand side of the layer. Once you no longer see the eye beside the layer, it is invisible. Now, click on the background copy layer. If you have a sky with a fairly uniform colour and tone, and good delineation in colour between the sky and other details the magic eraser will do a fair job of removing the worst of the sky. Click on the eraser tool and hold it down you'll see three options; the regular eraser (usually my tool of preference), the background eraser and the magic eraser (has a starburst on it). Select the magic eraser. If you look at the menu bar (just above the image window) you'll see that you can set some parameters for this tool - tolerance can tell the tool how closely you want to match the colour you are erasing. A lower number means it will select other pixels to erase based pretty closely on the colour you first click on; a higher number means it will select pixels with a wider colour range. Antialias smooths the edges between the erased area and the area left behind, and contiguous means any area touching (adjoining) the area you first select that has pixels in the correct colour range. For instance if you had a band of white across the top, a band of red, then one of blue, and a band of white again across the bottom, when you have contiguous selected, it will only erase the pixels in the top area of white, not the bottom area of white. If you uncheck contiguous it will attempt to locate all pixels of the right colour (withing the chosen tolerance) within the entire image. For this exercise, the tolerance was set to 32, antialias is on, and contiguous is on. Select the area (sky) and apply the brush and right away all of the pixels in that range will be erased from the image. In the case of my test image, it removed most of the sky.
From this small view, it doesn't look too bad, but when you zoom in, you'll find many areas around the tree branches, leaves and other small detail areas that are still white or have just fallen outside the tolerance range some are in areas that weren't contiguous. This will do for a start. Now we're going to insert a sky from a different image. When choosing a sky for your image, try to match the tones and colour balance as well as you can. Keep in the mind the scale of the sky against the image you are putting it into as well. One of the things I do frequently is to simply take different images of the sky and clouds on a variety of days when I see an interesting cloudscape, or formation, when it's sunny and blue, when it's dark and stormy. I save these images in a file folder I have named Image Textures. Inside this folder is one for sky and clouds, one for grass and ground, one for trees and leaves and so on. I almost always have a handy piece to use within an image this way. If you don't have something handy for the tutorial, you can go to free image sites and download one from there. I have lots of my clouds/skies on morguefile, but apart from mine, there are hundreds of skies to choose from, starting with bright blues and going to dark and stormy, including nights, sunrises and sunsets. Please read the terms of use. MorgueFile usage does allow for commercial use within certain guidelines (ie: you can just take an image run it through a quick filter and call it your own you can however use a sky to fix up part of your own) With the test image, I deliberately chose a sky that didn't fit the image well mainly because I wanted it to show the remaining bits of white which need to be removed. Open the image you want to take the sky from if it is just an image of sky you can select all (from the menu bar, select, then all) and copy the selection (from the menu bar, edit, then copy) minimize the sky image so that you are looking at your working image. Click on the invisible background layer (the very bottom layer) Now select (from the menu bar) edit, then paste to paste this sky into the current project.
The sky will appear between your original background (still invisible) and the background copy with the sky removed. Now you'll be able to see the areas that still need to be removed. Click again on the background copy layer and select your magic eraser if it isn't still selected. Zoom in and go to work removing all the leftover white. You'll probably notice as you work that some of the fine detail are being taken out along with the white don't worry too much about this unless it takes huge chunks out. We'll be replacing most of those fine details before we finish. When you've got it to a point where you are satisfied that all the old sky that you want removed is gone you'll need to turn on the visibility in the background layer. Click on the little box where the eye should be it will appear again. Click on the background layer, then choose select and then all from the menu bar. Copy this selection (edit, copy) and move up to the background copy layer (this should be the current top layer). Now paste your selection (edit, paste) and the entire original background layer should be copied to a new layer above your background copy (it will probably be called background copy 2). Set the layer blending mode to soft light, and adjust your opacity level. What you use for a blending mode and opacity level will depend on the image you are editing. For the image I used, soft light and an opacity level of 60% gave the results I was looking for. You'll notice when you get to this point that quite a lot of the fine details have been replaced they may be lighter than before (depending on the blending method you use) but they will be visible. Move down and click on the layer that contains your sky. Adjust the opacity level of this layer to give you a sky that looks like it fits your image.
Check your image for any inconsistencies sometimes the transition between sky and background will show as a darker or lighter line across the image. If you see this, use the regular erasing tool and erase some of the sky layer following the general outline of the details touching the sky (erase from the bottom of the sky area, don't erase the sky above the details). When you're fairly happy with the results, flatten the image. The final work is to check the edges of all your detail areas abutting the sky make sure they don't look choppy or too sharp. If you think they do, select the blur tool (this looks like a droplet, or teardrop), set the level to about 30% or 40% and use a small brush setting (maybe 9 or 13) and run this lightly along the edges to blend the sky to the detail areas. If the blur is too strong, undo it, and reset the tool parameter to 20%. Once this stage is complete, you can now do any further image editing or processing. There are other methods for replacing a sky, but I opted for this method for two reasons: one, it was something I could achieve quickly in PSE and two, it will hopefully allow beginners in image editing to feel confident enough to experiment with some of their own methods. A special thanks to CJ Hummel for asking about a tutorial. Thanks to her, I'll be able to post a sheet with the tool locations so that PSE users can follow my regular tutorials a little easier. Photography of Grace - J. Gracey Stinson