tutorial 1
Sunset not quite stunning enough? James Paterson shows you how to add a new sky to your landscapes and master essential Elements skills
Liven up your landscape shots by totally replacing dull skies
APhotoshop tutorial about replacing a sky in a landscape scene is bound to provoke the odd negative reaction. After all, the purist would argue, isn’t it just cheating? Surely it’s better to capture everything in-camera? Isn’t the challenge being in the beautiful spot at the perfect moment, and the thrill when something magical happens?
All this is true, but sometimes we’re simply not able to wait around for the perfect moment. Landscape pros will revisit the same scene over and again, but most of us don’t have the freedom to do this. So if you come upon a great landscape that’s let down by a featureless sky, this technique gives you the option to improve upon it. You might find it helps to build up your own library of stunning skies and interesting cloud formations, ready to be dropped into other images
Besides, there’s a challenge of a different kind in successfully matching two images together for a seamless, believable whole. Two random photos of land and sky won’t necessarily work, as the lighting, colours and camera angle need to be fairly consistent in both frames. For example, the pier and sky images here were both taken with the camera facing into the sun at sunset, which helps to make the blend more natural.
This is a good project for those who want to further their Photoshop skills, as it introduces many key techniques you need to master if you want to blend two or more images together. We’ll begin by using selections and layer masks to combine our images, then finish off with a neat trick for creating a subtle reflection of the sky in the wet sand.