scsdesphotography Loc: Southeastern Michigan

Just so you know, Landscape Pro can do what you want.

amfoto1 Loc: San Jose, Calif. USA

duplicate.... please delete

amfoto1 Loc: San Jose, Calif. USA

I would discourage trying to do this as a batch process.

It would be much better done on an image-by-image basis.



For example, I adjusted the sky separately from the hawk in the above shot, using Photoshop. Especially with a plain sky like this, it's super easy to select it and only make changes to the sky. I just used the Magic Wand tool in PS, fine tuned the selection slightly using other tools to add or subtract from the selection, then made the adjustments to the selected area. Next I inverted the selection and made different adjustments to the bird.

I did something similar for the shot of the mule deer below (nothing special... I was experimenting with stacking 1.4X and 2X teleconverters on a 500mm lens, all on an APS-C camera for 2240mm full frame equivalent focal length)...



I tried several things for the above shot, ended up "dialing it back" to just a slight tint of color because everything else I tried looked faked.

It's a very common problem for the sky to be overexposed in shots like these.

I've also compiled a "library" of skies to use as replacements, if I wish (as someone mentioned doing, in an earlier response).

Mike100

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Shoot in RAW format. In lightroom move highlight slider to extreme left, then Shadow slider to extreme right, to simulate extending dynamic range, then adjust exposure slider to center histogram. Vibrance slider to right, Saturation slider to right, Selectively decrease ’blue’ luminance slider, and selectively incresase ‘blue’ saturation. In general be careful not to blow out the highlights, erring slightly on the underexposure side is easier to fix. If all of the above fails, copy a nice caribbean blue sky in background with photoshop.

Robertl594 Loc: Bloomfield Hills, Michigan and Nantucket

I assume that the sky is not white because you have blown it out. If it’s over exposed, you will have to replace the blown areas with new sky.

Next time you are out under a nice blue sky with white puffy clouds, take some pics and store them to be used as backgrounds for other photos you take.

Best of fun.
RL

MikWar Loc: Chicago, Western Suburbs

Being very much the novice with Photoshop I found the above tutorial the best for layering a blue sky. I also found that with BIF (a bird with a dull gray/white background) I was able to use Select/Subject to successfully select only the bird in order to mask it. The pretty much eliminated the need to use the Blend If command. I'm still experimenting but feel like I'm making good progress, thanks to everyone's help.

DirtFarmer Loc: Escaped from the NYC area, back to MA

Any time you shoot a landscape with a nice view of the sky, take another shot of just the sky. Keep those sky shots all together and you can replace dull uninteresting skies in other photos with them using Photoshop.

PhotosBySteve

If you prefer to capture your subject while allowing the background to blow out, I suggest taking a properly exposed sky after your initial shot, then blend that image with the original image in post. This will also allow for color change of the sky with a more natural look.