This tutorial was written with beginners to Photoshop in mind. For more experienced PS users, the idea is simply to improve shots with a bland sky by replacing that sky with an image of foamy sea (adjusting for opacity, hue/saturation and brightness/contrast), to give a more unusual final image. The easiest way to improve a bland sky is of course to cut it from the image and replace with a better sky shot. For something a bit different though, this works well.

This was taken on an overcast day when the sky was blown out (completely white).

Find a suitable image of the sea; ones of shallow, frothy water work best. This is the one I used:

Open the image to be manipulated. First, copy it by pressing ‘Ctrl’ and the ‘J’ key so that you’re working on the copy, not the original, and in the Layers Palette click on the Eye icon next to the Background layer to hide it.

Now select the bland sky. Choose your selection tool depending upon how simple or intricate the area to be cut away is. If the sky area has a simple, well defined shape, click on it using the magic wand tool to easily select it.

For more intricate areas of sky (if it includes tree branches for example), use the polygonal lasso tool to make a rough selection, then press ‘Q’ to enter quick mask mode. Use the zoom tool to get a clearer view of the areas to be worked on, and use the eraser and/or paint brush tools to tidy up your selection.

Once you’re happy with the selection, press ‘Q’ again to go back to standard edit mode; you’ll see that your sky is now nicely selected. At the top of the screen go to ‘Edit’ > ‘Cut’ to remove it from the image.

Now open your sea image. Using the move tool, click on the sea image and drag it across into the original shot. (You can now close the sea image if you wish). If the dragged image needs to be resized go to ‘Edit’ > ‘Transform’ > ‘Scale’. Hold down the Shift key to retain proportions, adjust it to the right dimensions, then press enter to apply the transformation. In the layers palette click on the sea image layer (Layer 1) and drag it down below Background Copy, so that the sea image now sits behind the original image. At the top of the layers palette alter the opacity of the sea image if necessary.

At the top of the screen, now go to ‘Image’ > ‘Adjust’. Choose from the ‘Brightness/Contrast’ and ‘Hue/Saturation’ options to alter the tones of the sea picture to the effect you want. Depending on the detail in the sea photo you chose, at this point you might want to tweak it by using the smudge tool on parts of it. If used sparingly and with a small brush size it can create an effect of wispy clouds, but don’t overdo it because then the unusual effect can be lost. (Smudge is nested with the blur and sharpen tools on your tool palette).

Once you’re happy with these adjustments go to the Layer tab at the top of the screen and click Merge Visible, then save your improved photograph.

This technique also works well with sunset/sunrise shots where the colours of the sky are nice but lack any cloud detail.

If you have a shot of a sunrise/sunset where the colours are good but there is no cloud detail in the sky, and you would like to add some, a variation on the above technique can work well.

Choose a suitable image of the sea; for this I used the following one:

Open your main image and press ‘Control J’ to copy it. Now open your sea image. Select the Move tool from your tool palette and drag it into your main image. Now close the original sea image to avoid unnecessary RAM usage. The next step may or may not be necessary – it depends on what your sea image looks like. In the example used here it would be better flipped upside down. To do this go to ‘Image’ > ‘Rotate Canvas’ > ‘180 degrees’.

The sea may need to be resized to fit properly into the main image. Before doing this, you may want to enlarge the window to give a better view to work with. To enlarge horizontally simply place your cursor on the side frame of the window, and when it changes to a double ended arrow drag it across to the size you prefer. Repeat on the bottom frame to enlarge it vertically if needed.

To resize the sea go to ‘Edit’ > ‘Transform’ > ‘Scale’. Holding down the shift key to retain proportions, drag the handles to fit the window and hit Enter to apply.

Depending on whether your sea image would benefit from it, you can now go to ‘Edit’ > ‘Transform’ > ‘Perspective’. Click and drag out one of the top handles on the bounding box to give a wider perspective, then hit enter to apply.

Now select the Eraser tool, choosing a medium sized soft brush and with the pressure set to approximately 30%. Carefully sweep it across the lower edge of the sea to remove the hard edge.

Next go to the blending mode box on your layer palette and choose a blending option.

You need to experiment with the different effects of each option depending on what image you’re working on – but for this photo I’ve used Soft Light. Now turn the pressure of the eraser down to approx. 10% and sweep back & forth across the sky to remove some detail – use your own judgement about this. Now you can reduce the opacity to see if this suits your image.

Again, use your own judgement here. If you prefer it at full opacity simply drag the slider back up to 100%. Once you are happy with the results go to the Layer tab at the top of the screen and select Flatten Image.