Bringing Back Colors in the Sky with Photoshop
Often times we capture a beautiful scene on an overcast day and curse the white/grey/blownout sky which destroys the beauty of the scene.
Some of the lost beauty can be recovered.
Lets see how this works on this picture:
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See here that the sky is overcast. Also note that the sky is reflected in water.
In Photoshop
Step 1
Click ‘Select’ > ‘Color Range’
In the color range dialog box, select ‘Sampled Colors’ from the first drop down, ‘White Matte’ in the second drop down and select the radio button for selection.
Click on the first droper, the one which does not have a plus or a minus next to it.
Next, click on the sky.
Drag the fuzziness slider all the way to the left.
Hold the fuzziness slider and drag it to the right slowly, upto a point that all the sky and the refelction in the water has turned white.
Note: After a point, when all the sky is selected, parts of the scene may start to turn white.
Make a mental note of the parts of the scene which are not sky but has also turned white.
Click ok
Step 2
Now you will have the sky, the reflection and some parts of the scene selected Press ‘Q’ for edit in quick mask mode.
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See that the mask is applied to the entire image but for the sky, the reflection and some parts of the scene/
Take a paint brush, and paint a mask over the parts of scene which is not sky.
Recall from mental note the parts of scene which turned white during the fuzziness slider process.
Press ‘Q’ again to come back to Edit in standard mode. Now you see that only the sky and the reflection is selected.
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Step 3
Click ‘Image’ > ‘Adjustments’ > ‘Hue/saturation’
Move the lightness slider a little to the left of the mid point (-22) in this sample.
Move the saturation slider a little to the right of the midpoint(57 in this sample).
Now control the color of the sky by sliding the hue slider (193 in this sample).
Play with all the sliders and make adjustments to the color, saturation and lightness as per your taste.
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Step 4
Click ‘ok’ and click ‘Ctrl-D’ (for delecting the selection).
You’ve now got some color back in your sky.