Hi. I'm Jesus Ramirez from the Photoshop Training Channel.
In this tutorial, I'm going to show you how to replace the sky in a photo with Photoshop.
Sometimes you may take an awesome photo, but the weather doesn't help with achieving the
results that you want, so you'll need to use Photoshop to bring in
a new sky and take your photo to the next level.
In this video, I'm going to teach you a powerful method that will allow you to easily place
the new sky into your photo, and I'll even show you how to add reflections
onto the water.
Okay, let's get started.
And, before we begin, I would like to mention that this tutorial is part of a series of
tutorials that I did for Adobe.
You can actually find this tutorial and two other tutorials,
one on color matching and the second on hair cutouts, on Adobe's website by me.
And the reason that you might want to check out this tutorial on Adobe's website is that
you'll be able to find the downloadables on that page and also a written version of this tutorial.
So I'll place the link to those down below in the description.
So let's begin.
These are the images.
To replace the sky, we will use the Blend If sliders found in the Layer Style dialog.
Before we get into that, let's look at the RGB channels in the background image.
I'll disable the sky layer, then I'll go into Window and Channels.
In this panel, you will see the three channels that make up this image.
The combination of light in the red, green, and blue channels make up all the colors that
you see in this photo.
You can use these channels to create a mask or you can use their luminosity to hide or
show pixels with the Blend If command.
Notice that the blue channel has more contrast between the sky and the foreground elements
than the other channels.
The sky is bright, almost white, and the foreground elements are dark.
Keep this in mind because the dark and bright points in the Blend If command will reference
the brightness of this channel.
Click on RGB and then go back into the Layers panel, and we will start working on the new
sky and the reflection on the water.
Enable the sky layer and from the toolbar, select the Rectangular Marquee tool and click
and drag down from the top left corner to select the sky.
Make sure that the sky layer is active
and click on the Layer Mask icon to hide the areas that were not selected.
Then, select the move tool and click and drag the sky layer up until it is about where the
sky in the background is.
Now, create the layer that will become the reflection of the sky on the water.
Duplicate the layer by pressing Ctrl J on Windows, Command J on the Mac,
then flip it upside down by pressing Ctrl T, Command T on the Mac, to transform and
right-click and select Flip Vertical.
Then, drag the inverted sky layer down until it lines up with the bottom of the original sky layer.
Now, let's work on hiding the sky from the background layer.
First, drag the background layer above the two sky layers.
Then, click on the Effects icon from the Layers panel
and select
Blending Options to bring up the Layer Style window.
From here, you can use the Blend If sliders to show or reveal pixels
based on the image luminosit
or the luminosity of each RGB channel.
Remember that the blue channel has the strongest contrast between the sky and the foreground.
The sky is almost white and the foreground elements are dark.
So we will select Blue from the dropdown.
If you drag the white point to the left,
you will hide the areas that were bright in the blue channel.
Notice how the sky starts disappearing
because it was bright in the blue channel and it reveals
the image below.
To create a smoother transition between visible and invisible pixels,
you can hold Alt on Windows, Option on the Mac,
and click on the white point to split it in half.
Then, drag the left half further to the left to create a smoother transition.
When you're happy with the blend, press OK.
It is very important to note that Blend If is not just hiding blue objects in the photo.
Blend If is hiding anything that is bright in the Blue channel, which is why Blend If
affected the buildings, the bridge, and the ice on the water.
To bring back those areas and any other area that you want to keep,
duplicate the background layer by pressing Ctrl J on Windows, Command J on the Mac,
then remove the Blend If from this layer by right-clicking on the double square icon to
the right of the layer and selecting Clear Layer Style.
Then, from the toolbar, select the Quick Selection tool and select areas that you want to keep.
You don't have to be precise.
You can fine-tune later.
In some areas, you will have to tap on the left bracket key to make the brush smaller
and select the finer details.
Make sure that you select the buildings reflected on the water because you don't want the clouds
to go over them.
Also, select the icy areas on the sides.
When you're done, click on the Layer Mask icon to create a mask, which will keep only
the areas that you selected and hide everything else.
The only problem now is that the new sky is much darker than the original.
The sky is what illuminates everything in a scene, so when you replace the sky,
the new sky may not have the same luminosity as the original, so you will need to adjust it.
To do so, click on the top sky copy and, from the New Adjustment Layer icon, select Levels.
From the Properties panel, you can drag the black point to the right to brighten the new
sky to match the brightness of the original sky.
Then, you can use the midpoint slider to adjust the contrast.
At this point, all you need to do is fine-tune your image, adjust the levels adjustment,
the Blend If, or the mask to get better results.
This is what my image looks like with about five minutes of fine-tuning.
Let me know down in the comments below if you enjoyed this tutorial and what you learned.
Also, don't forget to check out my other tutorials on Adobe's website.
The link to those are down below in the description.
Once again, the tutorials are the hair masking tutorial and the advanced color replace method.
Check those out.
I'm sure that you'll enjoy 'em.
Also, if this was your first time at the Photoshop Training Channel,
then don't forget to click on that Subscribe and Notification buttons.
Thank you so much for watching.
I will talk to you again in the next video.