- Bonjour mesdames and messieurs,
in this video I want to show you how you can take
this photo shot from the top of The Rock in New York
and making it from this, to this incredible sunset.
It's my technique in three easy steps to replace sky.
This is part of my new course on sky replacement.
My new course on sky replacement is quite amazing.
i=It's got 112 skies, 10 different projects.
It's got class brushes.
It's huge.
Check out the link below to get the course,
Get it while you can.
We have a special release price so this is just one
of the 10 projects.
Let's go to New York and let me show you
these three easy steps to replace skies in your photography.
All right so after a golden hour now comes the sunset.
This is a photo I shot on the top of The Rock
looking at the Empire State Building for sunset,
but there was hardly any sunset.
So can Photoshop do something about it?
I'm guessing so.
What I advise you to do first is do some retouching,
because this is, remember we're going to be using
blending modes and blending modes,
anything which is white is gonna make,
is going to become transparent.
So first of all your photo needs to be a little bit
on the overexposed side,
and second the sky needs to be white.
So I'm gonna open up the shadows.
I'm still gonna do some blacks here.
I'm gonna boost the whites.
And I'm gonna boost the highlights to make this more white.
Okay?
Maybe just add a bit more blue, just a little bit.
If you add blue here it's gonna kill the white there.
Maybe add a bit of magenta, a little bit.
Okay.
You can add a bit of texture and clarity,
but just the sky is so boring.
So I'm gonna right click.
I'm gonna go to edit.
Photoshop 2020 mesdames and messieurs.
(speaking foreign language)
Here we go so.
So here I am in Photoshop.
So remember this is a sunset so now we're going to go
to the sunset section.
Which is here.
And I tried many sunset on this photo I think
because the sun was right behind the Empire State Building
I ended up, let's see here, let's try a couple,
it's I'll give you a fast way to try photos,
you can click and drag a sky and since you know
that you're gonna be using a blending mode
you just put it on top of the sky,
press enter and go to multiply and look at it.
And you're like, and you can see right away the potential.
It's actually pretty good.
Actually you know, this I've never tried.
Let's do this one so Command + T I'm gonna to position
this right on the horizon here.
Right here, about here.
Press Enter, Command + J, you have to remember this guys.
Command + J.
Command + T right click, flip vertical,
hold down the shift key, boom, boom, boom.
Make it stick.
Press enter.
Select both.
Right click.
Merge layer.
Boom.
Multiply.
It's the same formula almost every time.
So on this one it's gonna be hard,
I'm telling you right now, it's so extreme
that I'm not sure it's gonna work,
but let's let's make it work.
So first thing's first, I think it's just so much
I'm just gonna lower the opacity a little bit.
Yeah, just a little tad.
Second I'm gonna do the, take the lasso tool, one thing,
oh another trick you can do if you want to be really precise
I'll show you, you click here on the original image
and you go here instead of using the lasso tool
you click here to use the quick selection tool
or you press W and you click here on the sky
to make a sort of a fast selection of the sky.
So now the sky is selected but that's not what we want.
So I'm gonna go here select, and I'm gonna go, I'm gonna go
to invert the selection, inverse.
So now I only have the bottom because it was easier
to select the sky and now that I have this,
make sure that you are on the sky layer.
Make it active, you have to be on the sky layer
if you're not, it's gonna be too late.
Okay if you're not, you're going to be in trouble.
And then it's going to going to work.
You're gonna filter, blur.
And we're going to go to Gaussian blur.
And this one needs a pretty strong Gaussian blur,
I think this is kind of cool.
Check it out before, you see we can see all the clouds here.
After.
Basically all you get after is the color cast.
So that's good.
Command + T.
Command + D.
So now it's okay, it's just very strong, but it's okay.
It's okay.
So now we're gonna take a mask, okay?
Click here for the mask, B for brush.
I still have black as my foreground color,
I'm still at 20% opacity and now mesdames and messieurs,
I can go here and take the effect out,
but you know layer by layer on a gradient
and I can look at it I'm like hmm.
It is not bad, it is not bad,
but let's see if we can do better.
So I mean I wouldn't go through all these steps
to test this sky.
What I usually do is I'm, I take a sky I drag
and drop it there.
I put it you know where it should be.
You have to be fast
because there's so many possibilities
and I put this into multiply and I look at it I'm like ah,
it's not bad, it's not bad.
Okay if you don't like it boom,
you you press here on the bin, yes.
And voila.
So I think the one I ended up using is this one.
So I'm gonna to drag and drop this one here.
I'm gonna put it here because that's exactly
where the sun was
and let's see I'm gonna to put this into multiply.
Ooh, already it looks kind of cool.
I think this one matches it much better.
So Command + J, Command + T.
Right click, flip vertical.
Hold down the shift key.
You align it, press enter, and with it what's weird is
when you're going to select both skies and click here
and you're gonna merge them,
it's gonna go back to normal mode, why?
I have no idea.
So I'm gonna put this back into multiply
and already I'm liking this a lot better.
There's a few things that we need to tweak.
First of all of course we need to do the technique
of the sky so I'm gonna take this out.
I'm gonna select the sky, W for the quick select tool.
You need to remember these shortcuts like W,
which is a quick select tool,
is one of the most important shortcut.
And then I'm going to go to select,
I'm gonna inverse the selection,
I'm gonna go here on that layer.
Okay wait for it.
So now the bottom is selected
and I'm on, make sure you're on the layer where the sky is
and I'm gonna go to Filter, Blur, Gaussian blur.
The last value is very strong 142,
maybe it's a bit too much.
You know I kind of like to have some of the clouds formation
but not a line like this.
So I'm gonna go like this.
Okay, press okay.
Command + Z to undo, Command + Z is one of these shortcuts.
And I could lower the opacity, I advise you not to do that,
not to lower the opacity it looks more real.
But I advise you to use a mask.
And press B for brush so you gotta remember, B for brush,
B for brush.
Okay black is your foreground color, 20%.
Very important, 20% and now I'm gonna brush.
And because it's 20 % and when you brush,
you see I don't like it's too dark here.
Something and now it looks more real.
And if you like, let's say you brush here,
and you're like oh, I took it out too much,
you just press X, white is going to become the foreground
and you bring it back.
You bring it back how you want it and voila.
Now the photo is crooked, it needs a double development,
but first there's something weird in that sky here,
so, like a bird or something,
so what you can do is you can go here,
sorry go here, take the spot healing brush tool
and I'm just gonna erase that here, okay, yeah.
Command + Z, you don't need to make such a big line,
just over there.
There was maybe some kind of bird in that original sky.
I didn't see that but that's okay, that's okay.
So I'm gonna go back into Lightroom
and now I'm gonna do a second,
so I'm gonna close this and I'm going to save it
and that's going to bring it back into Lightroom
and we're going to do a double development in Lightroom.
So let's go to Lightroom.
So that was the before photo I mean that's the before photo,
it's pretty crazy.
And now here's the photo back in Lightroom.
First thing first I'm going to go here,
I'm going to go in the crop tool,
I'm going to use the angle and I'm going to click and drag
on the horizon to make sure I'm very straight.
And I was not and then I'm gonna go 16 by 9.
16 by 9 is my favorite crop
because it very looks like a movie.
It's like a movie you know, and I love the sky,
so something like this, press Enter.
ooh the Empire State Building and then maybe you know open
the shadows a little bit, bring down the highlights.
Do the black, you do the white.
You can fuzz around with a white and tint,
but not too much because it's gonna go weird very much.
So, I just play around and see what I like like maybe,
just a little bit more yellow,
but very little don't go like this, gonna go crazy,
because it's not a RAW file anymore so you have to be very
gentle with the.
And then see here tint, and yeah maybe here a little
on the side maybe a little bit brighter.
Something like this and add a bit more contrast.
And I think I really like this.
So this was the original photo
and this is the final result that we got.
The Empire State Building with a crazy, crazy cool sky.
All right guys I hope you like this video,
click the link, get the course while you can.
You will see, it's gonna blow away your photography.
If you want to know more also put a link to a YouTube video
where I give more details about this new course.
It was four years in the making, get it now.
(dramatic music)