SOS (Save Our Skies)

[tashley]

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OK, I know I should already have the perfect way to do this but I don't!

 

For shots where people don't have the opportunity to combine three exposures into one and do HDR/Tonemap, and where using a grad filter isn't desirable, how do you save your skies? Skies of the gray-ish but still with a bit of detail in the clouds variety?

 

Making a mask is fiddly at best and if there are lots of feature on the skyline, impossible. It also tends to leave a glowering 'feather line'.

 

Nothing I do with curves/levels works well enough

 

Burning and dodging leave 'tidemarks' around detail unless one is willing to spend literally hours for each shot.

 

This is for large exhibition prints (30" wide or more) shot on either 4x5 film, Canon 1DSIII, or M8.

 

I'm pulling my hair out!

 

Best

 

Tim

[Roland L.]

Imho waiting for a better light is the best thing to do.

[jaapv]

Put it as a smart object in CS3 twice at different exposures, make a layer mask and "paint" using a soft brush, and a hard brush on the edges. Switching from black to white as foreground colour will erase any mistakes.

If there are places that are very difficult to "paint", you can lasso those. I find it is a matter of minutes rather than hours to use this technique.

Extra advantage: you correct your exposure in RAW, which gives better results than working from one file and changing exposure in CS3.

But then,of course it is like HDR...

 

Another trick: Adding a gradient combined with vignetting often works well, especially in B&W.

Pulling your hair out is a lot better for digital, in the darkroom it tended to end up in the negative mask of the enlarger

[dave_d]

Why not process your RAW file 3 times; one for the hightlights, one for the mid tones, and one for the shadows. Then create an HDR image from the three processed files???

[stunsworth]

Select the sky with a large feather value - say 50 pixels, then adjust in a curves layer.

[JHAG]

Tim, did you try this ?

BlendedExposuresRevisited.pdf

[AlanG]

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...Making a mask is fiddly at best and if there are lots of feature on the skyline, impossible. It also tends to leave a glowering 'feather line'.

 

 

Best I know from my limited experience with Photoshop is that this is a problem with Photoshop's lousy feathering. Some background - I replace or adjust skies all of the time for architectural exteriors and can do a perfect job. The trick is that I use a program called "Picture Publisher 10" which no longer is made. The masking in Picture Publisher can be feathered in three ways - Outside, Inside, or Centered. And feathering can be hard, soft, or normal in any number of pixels. By feathering it outside the mask, I can get a nice even blend. Plus it is easier to create a good mask in Picture Publisher.

 

Recently I started looking at Photoshop CS3 because I was teaching a class and the students were all using Photoshop. While Photoshop has some excellent features, I found it lacks some things that I use often or is poor at some.

 

For instance, it has a single cloud pattern that in no way is good enough to simulate a real sky. Whereas Picture Publisher has a method to randomly generate all kinds of very realistic clouds. These can easily be placed in their own layer and blended into the existing sky for a very natural look working just on the area that is masked. I also often do a slight gradation on the "new" sky, keeping it a little darker at the top and lighter as it merges with the horizon. Sometimes it gets a little tricky working around fine tree branches and leaves, due to the feathered mask, but I've figured out easy ways to get that to work.

 

The other thing that really bothers me about Photoshop is the totally brain dead Rubber Stamp tool. It is a pain to have to keep selecting a source and having to set it. (What is it Alt-click?) Then there is no way to see the edge of the source's brush, so when you are cloning you don't know when you've moved too far until it is too late. Then you have to undo it and try again and again. If you could see how this works in Picture Publisher, you'd be impressed by the elegance. While I don't promote myself as a retoucher, several ad agencies have me extensively retouch my images because I can do a better job (or more efficient job) than their artists can. I think part of the reason for this is that I don't use Photoshop. (Although I may have to use if for some things as Picture Publisher is getting left behind in some ways because the program hasn't been updated in about 8 years.)

 

So while this might not help you because you aren't likely to get Picture Publisher, maybe find some other retouching program that can make a better mask and feather it better (I know there are masking plugins for Photoshop.) And perhaps see if there are any cloud generators.

[Riley]

or you could mount a split ND filter in the first place

[robsteve]

Have you tried selecting the sky and then use the refine edges option in CS?

[Guest WPalank]

Tim,

Here's a quick way in ACR or Lightroom. I know you have at least LR.

 

First push the Clarity slider to the right to remove haze in the sky,

Now push Vibrance to the right for a subtle saturation boost.

 

Here's the rub:

Go to the HSL sliders and in Luminance area drag the Blue slider to the left until it is to your taste.

 

The first image below is without the above adjustment. The second with the above plus a very slight S curve in CS3. If it looks like there is to much Cyan in the sky, remember Red is the opposite of Cyan (Tim, I understand that you know this but this is being written for everyone), add a Curves Adjustment Layer, change the Channel drop-down from RGB to Red, Command or Control click in the area of the sky that is too Cyan which will add a point on the curve, use the up arrow key a couple of bumps thereby adding red and reducing the Cyan.

Cheers,

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[lesh]

Perhaps because I've never mastered it, I've always found the layers and masking route with Photoshop to be cumbersome. As has been suggested, creating a pseudo HDR from 3 'adjusted exposure' files created from a single raw, might produce a good result. Another option might be to try Lightzone or the Lightroom 2 Beta which both feature more sophisticated selection or region tools. They make it easier to selectively adjust one particular area, such as the sky.

I've found that Lightzone usually gives me the best result, but that may be because I've not yet had time to get familiar with this new feature in Lightroom.

[AlanG]

Here is a link to an exmple of generating a new sky. I typically do this when the real sky is blown out or otherwise lacking. In this case there weren't any trees that would interfere with using a feathered mask. (Needing a bit of special care.)

 

http://www.goldsteinphoto.com/Posts/sky%20retouch

 

It is a little "punchy" because these were running as large ads in newspapers.

[tashley]

Thank you to everyone for your suggestions! I really do appreciate the time and wisdom that have been contributed. There's plenty to try here - and I also have a new book by a guy called Tim Daly called Creating Exhibition Quality Digital Prints, and that has some interesting ideas based on traditional printing methods including pre-fogging and split grade printing, plus some interesting tricks with the history brush.

 

The real problem here is, as many people have observed is that making selections is extremely complex if there's a lot of detail on the skyline. I have hopes of the new automatic masking in LR 2 but it's pretty crummy in the beta.

 

In the meantime I will continue to try your suggestions above. Once again, Thank You!

 

Tim

[Dantist]

Why not process your RAW file 3 times; one for the hightlights, one for the mid tones, and one for the shadows. Then create an HDR image from the three processed files???

That's precisely what I do : 3 copied files in DNG format, dark, normal, clear, most usually -1.5 EV, 0 EV, + 1.5 EV. Then transfer these 3 to format jpg with Photoshop, that"s it to start the HDR

Using Photomatix provides better results with more controls, imho, than the HDR feature in CS3.

 

Could never manage proper Digital Blending, that gives quite better results.

At least not yet, but one day, since I am patient but persistent, I WILL !

[mitchell]

Tim,

 

There is a selection technique explained on the Luminous Landscape site that may be the answer. I haven't used it yet, but it looks very useful. Check out "Tough Selections Made Easy" by Charles Cramer. I think it could make a big difference.

 

Best,

 

Mitchell

[Jamie Roberts]

Tim, try this thing:

 

Fluid Mask, Photoshop Plugin, Photoshop Plugins

 

I have but have never needed to use it and haven't had time lately to try it out...(I know--money well spent). However, the demos I saw were simply amazing and I know all the traditional cut-out tricks.

 

PS--if you provide a link to a RAW file we could try a number of techniques on it, if you don't mind.

[wstotler]

Why not process your RAW file 3 times; one for the hightlights, one for the mid tones, and one for the shadows. Then create an HDR image from the three processed files???

 

This sounds like a good idea--nobody commented on it, though. Is this a workable solution? My preliminary quickie tests showed some promise. . . .

 

Thanks,

Will

[AlanG]

This sounds like a good idea--nobody commented on it, though. Is this a workable solution? My preliminary quickie tests showed some promise. . . .

 

Thanks,

Will

 

This won't do you much good if the sky is poor in the first place. Plus HDR affects the entire image which may not be what your want. I've never found it difficult to mask the sky and replace it with a new one, but I'm not using Photoshop which does not have the best masking and feathering tools.

[Jamie Roberts]

This sounds like a good idea--nobody commented on it, though. Is this a workable solution? My preliminary quickie tests showed some promise. . . .

 

Thanks,

Will

 

Yes, this works very well, though as Alan points out you need to compress the tonality back to something reasonable or live with weird HDR tonality (which I personally rarely like).

 

But three converts or three exposures still relies on your ability to mask. It's a good idea, though.

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[Dantist]

Tim,

You may be inspired by technical informations on this webpage (see sky at bottom) :

Digital Blending

 

Some samples of digital blending processed pictures with very nice skies (imho) :

Digital Blending - a set on Flickr

 

Cheers,

Michel