SOS (Save Our Skies)

[lesh]

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Seems to me that blue skies can fairly readily be 'treated' to create a more accurate representation, but for me dull grey skies are more of a pain deal with. Here's a fairly ordinary pic which features a rather blah sky, which doesn't show the threatening cloud formation that I remember.

 

I've tried a couple of things with it, an HDR type approach, and a region based adjustment with LightZone. They seem to come closer to the scene I recall, and obviously, more work could be done - but that aside which is best? As the Art Forgery guy says, 'only you can be the judge'.

 

Feel free to try your own 'clouds recipe' on the original and share it with us. I wouldn't be surprised if someone who's a dab hand with tone curves, could produce a better result more quickly.

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[AlanG]

Here's how I see it. I used your image with the darkened sky and generated new clouds to fill in the blank areas. I blended the two.

 

I don't know if there are other programs that can generate good clouds, but I do this very often and couldn't work as easily without it.

 

The fine detail around the trees gets lost as this is a very low res file to start wiht and then there are jpeg attributes too. But in hi res it could be prefect.

 

I'd be tempted to darken the reflection in the water too... but this is just a quick example.

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[cboudier]

If you use Lightroom, you may give this a try

[Guest WPalank]

Mssr. cboudier,

I just saw that and was about to post. You beat me to it.

[wstotler]

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.

 

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.

 

Thanks, guys! I'll play with it more. --Will

[lesh]

Here's how I see it. I used your image with the darkened sky and generated new clouds to fill in the blank areas. I blended the two.

 

Thanks Alan, cloud generation is probably the answer for a grey sky, your result is good, as you say the reflection on the water probably also needs some care.

Thanks also Messrs Palank & Boudier - hadn't yet spotted the latest on Kloskowski's site - very timely, maybe he's been reading this thread. His preset looks like it might be the first thing to try when there is already some blue to work with.