Importing a new sky advice?

[chris82]

Recently I took a series of landscape shots and most of the photos look good but there are one or two which I think are really good. I mean the comp and subject look good but the only draw back is the sky on the shots in question are a complete washout. It's a shame but sure these happen. Could some one explain the technique of importing a new sky into my existing shots in PS CS3?

 

[MReid]

Do a selection of the sky you want to replace.
Now open a picture of a sky you want to put in the original.
Select>All> control C to save. Close photo.

Go back to the original where you selected the sky.

Go to Edit>Paste into selection.
Control T allows you to drag the corners of the sky you pasted in to make it fit your photo.

 

[Big Mike]

Just last week, I watched a webinar about how to replace skies in landscape images using Photoshop and Topaz Remask. Topaz Labs - Free Webinars and Live Training
They usually put up their past webinars for viewing.

But in general, it's a pretty simple process. You need to create a selection to separate your foreground from you sky, you can then turn that selection into a layer mask. Then you just have to bring in the new sky image, as a layer (copy & paste, Drag & drop etc.) and place it behind the foreground layer.

The key to making it look good, will be how accurate your selection and masking are. That's where a plug-in like Topaz Remask can really help, but you can do it right in PS...there are many, many different techniques for selections & masking.

 

[analog.universe]

An important consideration as well is matching the color and lighting. One of the tip offs to a fake sky is that the lighting reaching the ground doesn't look like it could've come from the type of sky that's in the photo. The best way to solve this is to get your sky shot while you're getting your ground shot, so they match. If you can't do that, spend some time with hue/sat and curves to make the light look realistic.

 

[chris82]

Ok thanks fr the input guys I will give it a go. Big Mike thanks for the link seems like it could be a very useful site.