Adding clouds to clear skies
bhogle
Registered Users Posts: 59 Big grins
I see lots of posts about fixing blown out skies or getting better 'blues.' What about adding clouds to landscape photos? Does anyone have experience doing this?
I've played around with the Render clouds function in Photoshop a little bit. But the look is really awful looking - more oriented toward graphic arts rather than photography.
That being said, whats the process? Shoot photos of clouds and merely pull them into the image? Thanks.
I've played around with the Render clouds function in Photoshop a little bit. But the look is really awful looking - more oriented toward graphic arts rather than photography.
That being said, whats the process? Shoot photos of clouds and merely pull them into the image? Thanks.
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You will get lots of opinions from folks about editing landscape images, from "I NEVER change anything and neither should you", to artistic renderings only vaguely reminiscent of a photograph.
My personal opinion, is that my images are mine and I can do what I want with them, being aware that not everyone accepts that stance without reservations.
If you are going to fix a sky, why not replace it wholesale, rather than try and spruce up a bad sky a bit to make it a little better - is my philosophy. I have never gotten believable clouds from "render clouds", but maybe that is just because I am not good enough at it too.
I posted one technique for replacing skies here
Be aware you have to be sensitive to lighting directions and color balance for this to fly at all. One image of mine that has had the sky completely replaced is this one. The sky was actually shot from very near this location, but about an hour later. The sky frame was actually captured with a G10 as we were leaving, and composited with the mullti frame pano shot with a 5D an hour or so earlier. So light direction and color balance are reasonable close to my eye.
Moderator of the Technique Forum and Finishing School on Dgrin
This photo is stunning. Moab is at the top of my must visit places! I have a Q for someone. I'm somewhat of a novice but I'm also a sponge with respect to learning new things. Does anyone know how to take out the color of a phot except for perhpas one object......or one color....I have a couple of photos I'm trying to edit and want to try something like this with them. Unfortunately I'm not figuring it out on my own and I'm sure it's an easy process...........Thanx for any help!!!
You need to mask the object and desaturate the rest of the photo.
OR, if the object is its own color (i.e. different than the rest) you can create a mask based on a color range.
Masks and layers are the way of the world in Photoshop, grasshopper.
One easy way is to duplicate your image in Photoshop with cmd-J. Then convert the upper layer to grayscale via your method of choice. Use the history brush to paint the color from the background layer onto the upper layer in the desired areas, and you are done! No need for masks, just paint to your heart's content. Masks CAN help if you can't paint within the lines.
That simple!
Moderator of the Technique Forum and Finishing School on Dgrin