Blown out sky advice

Bakko · September 29, 2011

Hey guys,
I recently did a wedding with terrible forecast.
It was one of those terribly cloudy days that completely blew out the sky
in all my pictures.

Any advice on how to work with a blown out sky for future references?
And if you have any processing advice that would be awesome too!

zoomer · September 29, 2011

Let er go. Get the exposure correct on the peoples faces and try not to blow out the dress.

tenoverthenose · September 29, 2011

When shooting, just add light to your foreground to match your background exposure.

If you've already shot it and lost the detail, a current popular option is to crush the whites and then bring down the white output level so nothing is pure white. It almost might look intentional

Qarik · September 29, 2011

if it is a posed shot..light them as tenoverthenose suggested, if you can't light them then expose for skin tones and like zoomer suggested. you can try and get differnet angles to avoid the sky as well. In post you can you can use the recover slider to help out but that will only get you maybe 1.5 stops which will only help for skies that are slightly blown.

Erbeman · September 30, 2011

Shoot down if at all possible or find angles that fill the background with trees or something. You can also turn pics into B&W. Otherwise, your clients are just going to have to understand, you aren't in charge of the weather and can't help that the skies are white in your pictures of that day.

Matthew Saville · September 30, 2011

All I can say is, learn lighting. Blowing out the sky might be done accidentally, or on purpose. It just depends what you're going for. But the important thing is to understand the light. If the sky in the background is too bright, you either need to get the sky OUT of your composition altogether, and put your subjects against a shaded background, OR you need to light your subjects with a flash or reflector. For the most part, an overcast day is VERY POPULAR for photographers simply because the light is soft. Direct sunlight is hated by most all photographers. Personally I love sunlight and I put a lot of effort into making ANY lighting situation look dramatic, but in general if you've got an overcast day then your portraiture should be a breeze. As long as you manage the background.

Take care,
=Matt=

(Off the top of my head, here's a wedding portrait made on a cloudy day using flash...)

r3t1awr3yd · September 30, 2011

If you're editing with LR3, try the gradient filter. It works pretty well

ian408 · September 30, 2011

Matt. Your image is a great reason to learn lighting. The B and G might have hated the weather but I bet they loved the pictures.

divamum · October 2, 2011

Yup, gradient in LR for sky - it's sruprising how efficiently it helps pull out some details!!

I often prefer it to more complex adjustments in PS.

Shima · October 2, 2011

I've been experimenting with HDR using Photomatrix Pro, so if you're brave and can keep it mild so as not to make the image look like an HDR, you can use a single RAW in Photomatrix Pro and bring back some sky.

Otherwise like others have said - a) learn lighting and b) the LR gradient tool is great

Matthew Saville · October 3, 2011

ian408 wrote: »

Matt. Your image is a great reason to learn lighting. The B and G might have hated the weather but I bet they loved the pictures.

I do often find myself rejoicing in lighting conditions while the B&G worry about them. Ironic! Non-photographers don't realize just how rare certain types of light are, such as an overcast day in which you can see the sun but without it being totally blown out.

Of course a bright sunny day is a whole different thing, but the concept is the same. Overpower the sunlight, any way you can, and bring the brightness of the background and subject into the same exposure...

=Matt=

Blown out sky advice

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