Quick sky tricks

1Deeper blues

Lightroom HSL panel (called the Color Mixer in Camera Raw) lets you alter colour ranges with ease. If you have a blue sky that looks lacklustre, grab the target tool next to Luminosity and drag down over the blues to darken the sky, then grab the Saturation target tool and drag up to intensify the blues. 2Shift White Balance

A shift in white balance can completely transform the mood of a scene. For sunset photos try dragging Lightroom/Camera Raw’s Temperature and Tint sliders to the right, to add warmth and magenta to the image. This works best with raw files, which let you choose your white balance after shooting.

3 Fake cloud blur

We can mimic the cloud blur of a long exposure in Photoshop. Go to Select>Sky then copy to a new layer with Cmd/Ctrl+J. Hold Cmd/Ctrl and click the layer thumbnail to load a selection, then go to Filter>Blur> Radial Blur. Choose Zoom blur, increase the amount and experiment with the blur centre point.

4 Add flare in Photoshop

Make a new layer, set the Blend Mode to Linear Dodge, then paint a white blob with the Brush tool, Hit Cmd/ Ctrl+U for Hue/Saturation. Check Colorize then choose a warm orange hue and increase Saturation. Decrease Lightness until you get the desired result. Try duplicating and resizing the layer to build up the flare.

5 Create light rays

Make a new layer, set the Blend Mode to Screen then grab the Gradient tool. Set it to Angle gradient then go to the Gradient Editor. Set Gradient Type: Noise, check Add Transparency and increase Roughness. Drag a gradient, hit Cmd/Ctrl+U to desaturate then blur with the Gaussian Blur FIlter. Paint a layer mask to reveal a few of the rays.