Saving a crummy sky...

Pupator

This might be a finishing school question or the answer might be to "shoot it right" and not have to worry about it in PP.

These skies suck and this happens all the time when taking pictures of the kids outdoors. (The second isn't as bad as the first.) Is there anything I can do about it? :scratch

Moving Pictures

No pics?

Pupator

Link fail on my part. Should be fixed now.

Moving Pictures

"Polarizing filter" is my instant response.

Grainbelt

Really hard to mask and darken the sky only with all that tree detail.

Looking at just the first one: given the shade under the hat, the answer was probably fill flash, which would have lit his face and allowed a darker overall exposure. I suppose the answer in PP would be the same - layer off the child, or at least the area shaded by the hat, and adjust the rest of the image to taste.

Peano

The sky can be improved in post, as can other aspects of the image. I'm sorry to say I can't give you a simple recipe for doing that.
You'd have to be proficient (in Photoshop) with layers, masking, blend modes, and the standard adjustment layers (curves,
selective color, etc).

pathfinder

As Peano stated there are ways to improve your images in Photohshop, or even in Lightroom or Adobe camera Raw if you shot them in RAW. (Jpgs are less tolerant of major image changes.)

The techniques to do this do this in Photoshop are not simple, one step , "do this" kind of techniques, however.

If you use PS, and have a minimal understanding of the LAB color space, rutt described one way, via Lab, that is pretty simple and requires no luminosity masks.

It is an old trick, but still worthwhile at times.

Pupator

Thanks for the feedback folks.

Pathfinder - I'll give that a read.

Peano - I'm really just interested in the sky and on that part your correction is excellent. That's more true to the scene than the blown-out/washed-out sky in my version. I'm guessing you pulled that sky from another image and layered it in?

As for the "other aspects," I'd rather leave those alone. The grass color in yours is too green for NC in winter (mine was accurate on the grass color) and there's too much contrast in the boy's shirt.

Peano

Pupator wrote: »

Peano - I'm really just interested in the sky

Here's one way to fix the sky ...

Pupator

Very helpful - thanks again!

hawkeye978

If you work in Lightroom there is a trick I use all the time. In the Develop module there is a section towards the bottom for the color space with slides for the different colors. If you set to HSL space and select L (Luminance) you can go in and selectively darken the sky. Select the picker and then go to the, click on an area of the blue sky and then 'pull down'. You will see the slides move to the left and the blue will darken. It will darken the color in the entire picture but this usually isn't a problem. I would go too far because you will increase your noise and begin to see edge errors if it gets too dark.

Gary752

pathfinder wrote: »

As Peano stated there are ways to improve your images in Photohshop, or even in Lightroom or Adobe camera Raw if you shot them in RAW. (Jpgs are less tolerant of major image changes.)

The techniques to do this do this in Photoshop are not simple, one step , "do this" kind of techniques, however.

If you use PS, and have a minimal understanding of the LAB color space, rutt described one way, via Lab, that is pretty simple and requires no luminosity masks.

It is an old trick, but still worthwhile at times.

Another option is to get your photo to look the best you can in LR, then export to jpg. Then open the jpg in NIK Vivesa and work on the areas that needs help, like in this case the sky. I have used Vivesa to whiten the whites of eyes & teeth, and make skies or clouds darker. It takes a little practice, but not all that hard to learn. This method is quite a bit faster than creating layers and then editing in PS. Hope this helps.

GaryB

MarkR

I'm going to be a contrarian and say that the sky in #1 is quite fine as it is. Make it too saturated or contrasty and it will distract from your main subject.

#2 looks like you pushed the LR recovery slider to far. (A friend of mine calls it the "everything goes gray slider.") Plenty of ways to recover it, as Peano and Pathfinder and Hawkeye and others have shown.

zoomer

For snapshot with the kids, just let it go. Get a good exposure on your subject. Try to shoot evening and mornings. At midday the sky will most likely blow out or close to it most of the time.

If you are insistent, then use flash...or some of the other ways posted.
I use the Blue color luminance reduction in lightroom, or I use the polarizer or graduated neutral density filter in Nik if I really want to enhance a sky for a landscape.