How can I fix this sky? (half over-exposed)

[LCR265]

Hi all,

Just been looking at an photo I took a year or 2 back, and I'm trying to fix the over-exposed part of the sky. My problem is most guides I've found online are showing me how to turn a complete sky more blue, but I'm struggling with Lightroom as half of the sky is so bright any sort of gradient or colour tool only works on the darker side.

What I'm looking to do is have the sky a more even blue, or at least a less extreme over-exposure.

Is it possible in Lightroom or do I need Photoshop or similar?




Thanks

[Simpo Two]

Well technically the damage is done of course, but a work-round might be to select carefully the whole sky, remove it and add one you like. It's not a new idea; postcard makers did it 100 years ago!

[andyroo]

If the highlights in the sky are blown then you'll have to use something like photoshop to repaint it in

[LCR265]

Ah I thought that would be the case.

Not really sure I'm keen on the idea of having a 'pasted' sky Might give it a go out of interest anyway.

Cheers

[LongQ]

LCR265 said:

Ah I thought that would be the case.

Not really sure I'm keen on the idea of having a 'pasted' sky Might give it a go out of interest anyway.

Cheers

In that case pick a sky and Paste the landscape.




You may have some fun with the trees on the right ...

[Gemm]

If you don't want to 'paste' they sky, filling it in using a gradient tool shouldn't be too difficult.

[rasputin]

2 mins with GIMP.

Magic wand tool to select the sky, copy and paste to new layer, select dark blue from sky as colour 1 and light blue as colour 2, delete sky in new layer and use gradient tool to put it back in.

Then just play about with opacity of the new layer until you're happy.

[tim-b]

LCR265 said:

Is it possible in Lightroom or do I need Photoshop or similar?

You could use the adjustment brush (?) in Lightroom, near the gradient tool. It works just like the gradient, except you airbrush in the selection. Try carefully brushing in the whole sky, then use the erase brush on a large size to blend the area in question with the rest of the sky.

It would certainly be easier in Photoshop though, unless you don't have Photoshop

[K12beano]

Simpo Two said:

It's not a new idea; postcard makers did it 100 years ago!

How did you used to do it in them days, Simpo?




OP - a bit harsh, maybe, but why don't you just go back and take the shot again properly/better/as you wanted to/bracketed/ND filtered. What's so special about it?

[RobbieKB]

I swear in Lightroom you can use the recovery slider to bring overexposure back down. It's not great; it would never be better than the original shot being correctly exposure but I seem to remember using that once.

[K12beano]

RobbieKB said:

I swear in Lightroom you can use the recovery slider to bring overexposure back down. It's not great; it would never be better than the original shot being correctly exposure but I seem to remember using that once.

Yes, you can - and it's very controllable and quite intuitive. But you cannot restore anything if there is no information there - you just turn white to grey.





In LR4 you can control "Whites" or "highlights" in this way (it's the same as tinkering with the tone curve.....btw)

[LCR265]

K12beano said:

OP - a bit harsh, maybe, but why don't you just go back and take the shot again properly/better/as you wanted to/bracketed/ND filtered. What's so special about it?

Nothing particularly special about it, just wanted to have a go at fixing it as I don't have any experience in that sort of thing.

rasputin said:

2 mins with GIMP.

Magic wand tool to select the sky, copy and paste to new layer, select dark blue from sky as colour 1 and light blue as colour 2, delete sky in new layer and use gradient tool to put it back in.

Then just play about with opacity of the new layer until you're happy.

Thanks for having a go with it, my OP was by no means asking someone to do it for me though!

Thanks all.

[Ledaig]

K12beano said:

Simpo Two said:

It's not a new idea; postcard makers did it 100 years ago!

How did you used to do it in them days, Simpo?

Masking during print exposure (developing), just like you do in post editing now.

Mask the sky portion and expose for the scene, then mask the scene and expose with a sky from another negative.

[K12beano]

Ledaig said:

K12beano said:

Simpo Two said:

It's not a new idea; postcard makers did it 100 years ago!

How did you used to do it in them days, Simpo?

Masking during print exposure (developing), just like you do in post editing now.

Mask the sky portion and expose for the scene, then mask the scene and expose with a sky from another negative.

Simpo had to hand-paint the blue skies in....

[Blukoo]

Boredom strikes again tonight, so I had a little bash too.

[Ledaig]

K12beano said:

Simpo had to hand-paint the blue skies in....

I did't think you could paint on an etch-a-sketch

[Simpo Two]

They would actually photograph nice skies and keep them for adding to nice foregrounds. They just did the blending under an enlarger and not a computer screen

[Kermit power]

Blukoo said:

Boredom strikes again tonight, so I had a little bash too.

How long did that take you?

Every time I've looked at doing something like this (with either Gimp or Elements 8) I invariably get about 3 hours into trying to figure out how to select around the trees on the right (or hair on a person, or whatever) before it all goes horribly wrong and I just end up headbutting the monitor, which is blurred by my tears of rage.

[Blukoo]

This took about 10 mins or so.

I used the same technique to select the sky around the trees as I do for hair. I learnt from a tutorial on Youtube. I'll see if I can find it...

Edit: I think it was this video http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tj-SjDE1ldg

However I have adapted the technique a little, so it's not exactly the same.

Edited by Blukoo on Thursday 14th June 18:59