How would you replace this sky?

My fellow POTNers, I need your assistance. The shot you see attached is a 15 (ish, I don't remember exactly) show stitching. I'm happy with the exposure of the trees and chapel, but they sky was completely blown out on all three channels (100% in lightroom). I'd like to replace it, and I've made an attempt. I created a blue gradient that I think matches what the sky looked like the day I took these images. As you can see, with all the fine pine tree branches, blending it together is a pain. The result below is from the "Blend if" option, and it does a decent job except for the white haloing around the tree branches. Does anyone have an approach for a different method? I'm fine with completely editing out some some of the branches, but if I remove all the ones in the top right, for example, it won't be very realistic. Is there a way I can increase the contrast so the "Blend if" works better?

PS: the real image looks better than what's uploaded.

Sometimes waiting for the "right" day to shoot is the best alternative? This is for hair, but it might help: http://av.adobe.com/ru​ssellbrown/ExtractSM.m​ov

The Essential Approach to Masking in Photoshop

I didn't even think about relating it to hair. Thanks! And sadly, it was a vacation shot and I can't easily go back.

Put a layer with (just) the finest branches on top, blend mode multiply. That will drop out everything white.

http://scottkelby.com …eaturing-deke-mcclelland/

Topaz Adjust Deep Blue Sky filter.

A few "tricks" to try.

1. Before masking, try to enhance the detail and contrast of the faint tree branches. Topaz Detail is good for this. Some HDR programs can do that fairly well. These alone or with the "multiply" trick Rene mentioned. Of course, you need to mask that against the original and manually paint in the effect only on the tree branches.

2. If you have masked and cut the subject to paste onto a new sky, try pasting multiple layers. Each additional pasted layer usually adds more detail to the edges.

3. Play with the inner and outer glow in the blend mode, using a dark color and multiply mode for the glow. This can have a good effect on "halos." It's kind of complicated and difficult to get right. Sometimes I use two layers, one of the subject and one of the sky (inverted mask) with different "glow" settings. Takes some trail-and-error, but can be effective in many cases.

Post the original and some of us might have a go at it.

Find a photo of sky with clouds and import into this pic. Half of the branches won't be as bad against white clouds.

Use the blue channel (grayscale image) as a mask - blue will be white and everything else will be darker shades of gray. Copy the channel and use the copy with levels to separate the highlights (blue areas) form everything else. You can do this with the black and white point sliders and the gamma slider. Make sure the edges of the mask do not get too contrasty.

You will need to work with the original image, as the one you posted is riddled with JPEG artifact.

kirk

kirkt wrote in post #15606345
Use the blue channel (grayscale image) as a mask - blue will be white and everything else will be darker shades of gray

As I read the OP, the sky in the original image is white (blown), hence the replacement

René Damkot wrote in post #15606983
As I read the OP, the sky in the original image is white (blown), hence the replacement

Thanks for clarifying that... I was a little confused there.

I'm currently working on masking the branches, I'll be sure to post my results. Thanks for all the input!

My bad - then the mask is even easier to create with whatever channel you choose. Since the blue sky will be spilling fill light, there will be blue in all of the objects, but the foliage is green and the chapel is red/green so the blue channel should still give you the best contrast. CS6 also has a pretty decent edge control dialog in the masking layers panel, so you can refine your mask edges there too, etc.

Posting the original image is probably better than your attempt at a replacement, at least in terms of assessing a masking strategy. I was wondering why the sky around the leaves looked odd. Duh.

kirk

I use one of those when I want to replace a sky in a scene like yours:

http://www.youtube.com …JhVpx_1jg&featu​re=related

http://www.youtube.com …GnDmA_oZg&featu​re=related

Great videos, I've got a couple of photos that will be good candidates to try these techniques.