Making the sky blue

[Michaelmjc]

I took this picture of a barn today and as you can see it is very dull. I wanted to make it look like the sky is blue. (of course I could wait untill it actually is, but that would be too easy. I also want to know how to do it.) I have this picture of a golf course, with roughly the same size of sky, Would someone please let me know on how to take the blue sky and put it on the barn picture.

Barn--
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v352/michaelmjc/picture085.jpg

Golf course--
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v352/michaelmjc/Picture423.jpg


I would appreciate it very much.

Thanks a lot,
Mike

[rammy]

Hi Mike,

What Paint Packages do you have, PhotoShop CS?

I have attached my quick effort done in about 5 mins.

There are many ways of replacing the sky with another sky, here is my very quick example, did it in 5 mins. You can see that I have aggressively feathered around the horizon which you can do better with more time ;-)

Here is how it was done:

1) Open both images in PhotoShop.
2) Use the WAND tool, set tolerance to 28 and pick the blue sky. Make sure "Add to Selection" is clicked on the toolkbar and keep clicking on the blue sky until the "marching ant selection" covers the area you want.
3) Feather the selection, I chose 15 pixels. Copy the selection, CTRL-C
4) Go to the image where you want to replace the sky, paste selection, CTRL-V
5) Move the pasted blue sky BENEATH the layer that contains the barn image.
6) Using the WAND tool again, now select the sky on the barn image. Keep clicking till you have the whole sky selected.
7) Feather the selection, I chose 15 pixels. Delete the selection, DEL key or CTRL-X
8) Now you can see the blue sky on the layer below. Move the blue sky up and use Free Transform, CTRL-T to resize the sky and make it bigger.

That is it. Have a go yourself, spend more time on the feathering and compare to mine.

Another, more controllable way, would be to use a Layer Mask. Copy the blue image on top of the barn image, you should have two layers. Add a layer mask to the blue sky image, paint OUT the foreground and you should see the barn image start to appear. Zoom into the horizon and blend the horizon line for a better blend.

I also cropped the image to remove the distracting road and white lines. I was going to straighten the image a little as well as the horizons seems off, but left that as the barn seems level.

I also used Levels, Brightness/Contrast and Hue/Saturation to add a little punch to the image. You should sharpen it a little as well, when you have your final version.

Have fun!

[HKFEVER]

Check out this.

I second Rammy's method. But PS allow user have a lot different way to fine tune picture.

I saw our PS operators use a lot of different ways to modify a same picture to reach the same result. And some of the commercial PS operator may require 7 to 14 days to fine tune photo adv. especially portriat. So prepare to learn PS or simply buy some filter.

[Michaelmjc]

Thanks A LOT for your help, i'm not much of a photoshop person, I'm fairly new to it.

I really appreciate the help.

[ssim]

I took a run at this. I don't consider myself much of a photoshop guru. I keep a selection of sky shots for this very reason.

[GeForceFX]

Photoshop tutorial

http://www.lonestardigital.com/blue_sky.htm

[rebel61021]

wow that was pretty easy once you get it figured out.

[Michaelmjc]

Wow very nice. I especially like rebel61021's hand at it. Those clouds really enhance the photo.

We should have a contest, take a picture and see who can photoshop it the best. It's neat to see what you guys come up with.

[Sydor25]

My 5 minute attempt (went for a different look): :)

http://sydor25.com/Pictures/picture085.jpg


And, yes, I know that it isn't blended very well and he asked for a blue sky. :lol:

[Michaelmjc]

I thought I'd try to do somethign with the picture, here it is at sunrise now.

[Michaelmjc]

My 5 minute attempt (went for a different look): :)

http://sydor25.com/Pictures/picture085.jpg


And, yes, I know that it isn't blended very well and he asked for a blue sky. :lol:

I like it, Very creative. It doesn't have to be blue, I know how to do it now. You can make it whatever color you'd like.