Vivid skies

[zeddy]

What is the best way to get vivid coloured skies?

I understand filters would probably create the best looking skies. What alternative ways are there to make the best of a picture without a filter.

Are long shutter speeds better or larger apertures?

[Tsmith]

One way if you don't have filters is to meter the sky and hopefully in post processing you can compensate for the darker foreground _ be best to shot in RAW.

If you use a tripod take multiple exposures -/+ and combine in post processing.

[Mark_Cohran]

What is the best way to get vivid coloured skies?

I understand filters would probably create the best looking skies. What alternative ways are there to make the best of a picture without a filter.

Are long shutter speeds better or larger apertures?

Welcome to the forum.

Longer shutter speeds are larger apertures are not going to do anything to change the vividness of your skies. So if you're trying to just affect the sky and not the entire image, you're pretty much limited to filters or post-processing.

A Gradudated ND Filter will help you to keep a well exposed (not blown out white) sky while properly exposing the foreground, while a polarizing filter can help deepen the blue of the sky and make the clouds stand out in greater contrast (but this doesn't work in every direction).

Mark

[zeddy]

Thanks for the replies guys.

Regarding the ND filter - wouldnt this just cause a longer exposure? Does this longer exposure prevent the sky just appearing white?

[Tsmith]

Its a Graduated ND filter and you just meter as normal _ the filter is only darkening the top 1/3 of the frame, usually.

[ssim]

The ND filter may increase your exposure time overall but it is going to balance the amount of light reaching your sensor in each area of the image.

Shooting mulitple images and then blending in photoshop is one of the better ways of doing this. However, it is just sometimes not practical to take the time to setup the tripod in order to get the sequential images framed exactly the same. I find that a pain.

As Mark said a CPL filter works well for this but it is dependant on the direction of the sun in relation to the direction that you are shooting.

If you still have detail left in your sky you can also do this by using a gradient adjustment layer in photoshop. In the example below I just grabbed one of my cloud shots applied the adjustment layer and then illustrated how you can pain on it to bring back some of the detail to a point where you are happy.

[Thordic]

I'll probably get shot for this on here but I've used it many times to good effect in Photoshop. Sometimes you'll have a spectacular blue sky, but when you go back and download your pictures, its washed out. Now, what you can do is either A) find a picture you took where the sky looks good, or B) try to find a shade of blue that matches your memory of the sky.

Now lay a gradient over the sky, your chosen blue at the top, fading to clear. Play with the opaqueness of the gradient overlay until it looks natural. It takes some practice to get it right. This works best with landscapes, but you can do it in other pictures if you are willing to do a little more work (you have to clean out the gradient where it laid over anything in your photo or it will give you a blue tint, obviously).

Is it cheating? Somewhat. But if you do it right, you shouldn't be able to tell the difference between your fake sky, and a properly exposed natural sky.

I've seen a lot of people who keep a selection of photos of the sky that they like, and then they simply cut and paste that sky into images where they don't like the sky in their shot. I think thats cheating more than my method, I'm just compensating for overexposure, they are meshing two pictures together.

But as others have said, a filter can do the job better & easier.

[zeddy]

Thanks for the tips guys. I think i shall invest in some filters for my new L series beast. I'll see if i can get some nice shots when spring comes here in the UK.

[J Rabin]

What is the best way to get vivid coloured skies?
Vivid? And/or saturated?
Saturated you do with a polarizer.
Vivid you get a nice book, sit down with a thermos of tea, and wait for beautiful sky color during cooler spring or fall, or north sky in summer.

As noted above, you can use graduated ND filter to reduce the contrast range of the scene so sky exposure is closer to foreground, avoiding decreased sky saturation from overexposure.

Since I'm just an on-the-go photo person, I always under expose skies by 2/3 to 1 1/2 stops, get flash off camera in my left hand, and pop flash on the foreground, Photojournalist style. This was an ordinary sky, underexposed to saturate it, with flash on foreground:
http://aesop.rutgers.edu/~rabin/Insects_Critters/IPM/slides/IPM_Fruit_Tietjen_2.htm
Everyone did this with slide film.
I just don't do the whole PhotoShop thing.
Hey, you could also move to high elevation mountains. Skies get darn good at 3,000 meters and up!
Jack