Shutterstock Photographer Forum :: View topic

rohitseth · Joined: 07 Jan 2005 Posts: 384 Location: Mississauga

My Photoshop skills are pretty basic... nothing fancy other than curves, levels and color balance. I wanted to know how does one get that magnificent blue sky that's like a gradient from dark on top to lighter blue at the bottom... while maintaining the colors of the people and the beach intact. I need to use it with this image below. Any help would be immensely appreciated.

Thanks a ton

Ro

hhltdave5 · Posted: Fri Jun 15, 2007 7:55 am

Hey Ro - The Imaging Factory has a plug in for a graduated color filter that will adjust the sky tones in the way you describe. It's called Graduating Color and her is the web site where you can find it. I think it costs about $40.00 and you can get a 30 day free trial.

www.theimagingfactory.com/

You can also do some adjustments with saturation and desaturation but I find the plug in much better and easier to use.

tank_bmb · Joined: 04 Apr 2005 Posts: 1542 Location: Cincinnati, OH

Try NX Capture. There is a 30 day free trial available.

http://nikonimaging.com/global/products/software/capturenx/pdf/CaptureNX_catalog.pdf

You could use the Color Control Points to make a few quick selections in the sky and then darken the exposure and boost the blue. Then use a few U-Points to undo the effects in other areas. All in a couple minutes.

It is Nikon software, but works on TIFFs (and JPEGs).

Just saw a demo of the software last weekend and I was amazed how quick and easy it was.

mrslevite · Joined: 10 Jul 2006 Posts: 2884 Location: Dover, DE

If you are using photoshop, you can create another layer, make the sky look like you want it, and then mask the part you don't want changed. I'll send you a link to a tutorial for it if I can find it.

mrslevite · Joined: 10 Jul 2006 Posts: 2884 Location: Dover, DE

Well, it seems you can't get to the tutorials without registering at the site. But here's a link to the forum (run by our formerly very own MIZ): http://unnaturalphotos.com/

tank_bmb · Joined: 04 Apr 2005 Posts: 1542 Location: Cincinnati, OH

Here is my 90 second Capture NX version. Not sure if it looks good or not because my monitor here sucks! The original small JPG had a halo around the hat so it shows up more in my version. Should be a lot better with a full file.

peipen · Joined: 08 Feb 2007 Posts: 166 Location: Hamburg, Germany

first of all try to fix it in camera. in this case if you want to have a deep blue sky you have to shoot at the right weather/lightning conditions at dusk or dawn.

second use a polarizing filter with you camera. it makes the sky pretty blue if you use it right.

then fixing the rest in photoshop with adjusting the levels just a bit will be very easy.

here's an example:

regards

jenson

hkuchera · Joined: 19 Jul 2005 Posts: 1070 Location: Minnesota

Here's what I would do:
v1:
1) Create new layer
2) Fill new layer with white
3) Fill new layer with blue to white gradient
4) Create mask for people/beach
4a) On image layer use magic wand set to tolerance of 30
4b) Select sky/water
4c) Go to gradient layer
4d) Select mask button at bottom of layer palette (3rd icon from left) -- this will create black mask of people/sand on gradient layer
4e) Gaussian blur mask by .5
5) Set gradient layer to Multiply at Opacity of 70%

If you're satisfied with just the blue gradient background you can stop here.

But personally, I don't like a flat sky. So I would add some clouds. To do this:
v2:
1) On top of gradient and original image layer, create new layer.
2) Fill new layer with white.
3) Using the eyedropper, select a blue you like so you have that blue and white as your foreground and background colors.
4) In the menu, go to Filter/Render/Clouds
5) Using the transform tool, stretch this layer out and squeeze it up until you have long clouds rather than round ones.
6) Using the crop tool, select your entire canvas and crop it. This gets rid of the extraneous info hanging out on the sides (doesn't make a difference in appearance, but will help with file size)
7) Duplicate the gradient layer (Ctrl-J)
8) Drag the mask (just the mask!) onto your new clouds layer
9) Delete the duplicated gradient layer
10) Set the clouds layer to Hard Light

What I end up with for both versions looks a little unreal, but I don't personally think there's any way to make it any more realistic unless you reshot.
Does all that make any sense?

rohitseth · Joined: 07 Jan 2005 Posts: 384 Location: Mississauga

hkuchera, wow... that was incredible. I'm still trying to find my way into that tutorial, but I'm fairly sure I can take things from there.

PS - I still can't get the clouds to look as good as they did in your shot, but I'll keep trying.

Thanks a ton!

Ro

rinder99 · Posted: Fri Jun 15, 2007 2:55 pm

rinder99 · Posted: Fri Jun 15, 2007 3:24 pm

here ya go RO, No rocket science needed 20 seconds with Imagefactory. If ya want clouds, it wont do that.any color ya want and how much and it rotates

rohitseth · Joined: 07 Jan 2005 Posts: 384 Location: Mississauga

rinder99 · Posted: Fri Jun 15, 2007 4:13 pm

Oh, just still knocking heads, Teaching mostly, What ever happened to TP? I remember telling you , you should shoot food, Well ya did and I was proud of ya.still am. look at your stuff all the time.

tvphoto · Joined: 08 Dec 2004 Posts: 613 Location: Oregon

Whatever happened to Mr MIZ?
Is he still around the site, or did he leave?

(its' gotten pretty tame around here)

J

tank_bmb · Joined: 04 Apr 2005 Posts: 1542 Location: Cincinnati, OH