In October 2020, Photoshop added a new feature: sky replacement. Needless to say, this was met with both excitement and contempt and raised the seemingly never-ending controversy about how much a photograph can be manipulated and still be considered a photograph.
Without wading too deeply into that particular debate, my personal belief is that I can do to a photograph whatever I need or want to do to create the image I have envisioned in my mind. If I can do that with just a few basic adjustments, that’s great. If I need to make more significant changes, then that’s what I’ll do. There are no limits.
One of the things I will do to create the image I want is to replace a dull, boring sky with one that is more dramatic. Many people don’t pay a lot of attention to the sky in their photographs, but the sky can make or break a picture.
This image is an example of how important the sky can be to the overall image. I photographed these wildflowers one morning near the Buffalo River. I had arrived early to avoid the harsh lighting conditions that would accompany that day’s expected clear skies. Instead, I was treated to overcast skies with gray textureless clouds – the most boring and distracting type of cloud cover to have in a photograph.
Normally, in a situation like this, I will avoid including the sky in the frame. If I can’t completely avoid it, I will at least minimize it as much as possible. When neither of those options is really viable, I will compose the shot as I normally would and later, in Photoshop, replace the sky with something more suitable. In the past, replacing the sky in an image like this could be difficult to do and didn’t always look realistic. But, Photoshop’s sky replacement feature made the process surprisingly easy.
The secret is to make sure the selected replacement sky is compatible with the overall lighting of the scene. When the lighting is even and low contrast, such as in this image, then having a sky with fluffy white clouds probably doesn’t make sense. I have a folder full of skies I have photographed over the years for just this purpose. Anytime I see an interesting sky or cloud formation, I will try to get a picture of it to add to my collection.
The photo below on the left is the original sky, while the image on the right is the same photo after replacing the sky
