Posted by Dennis Plank on October 7, 2017 at 12:45 PM
Given the recent discussion indicating that replacing backgrounds in the Avian Gallery, I thought it best to post this one here. I followed Richard Ditch's suggested method of replacing the sky but used the color picker and grabbed the base color for the background from a somewhat faded blue sky taken the following morning at roughly the same time. I then applied it using the gradient tool in PS CC and made some minor exposure and saturation adjustments to it to get it looking like I wanted. I also cleaned up those thin pieces of vegetation that were somewhat distracting.
Richard's steps are duplicated below.
If you click on the image, you'll get a 1200 pixel version.
<div style="margin-left: 40px;">1. duplicate the background layer so you have two.</div>
<div style="margin-left: 40px;"> </div>
<div style="margin-left: 40px;">2. Select the vireo and the branch in the upper layer and with it active click on the mask icon to turn the selection into a mask.</div>
<div style="margin-left: 40px;"> </div>
<div style="margin-left: 40px;">3. Pick a shade of blue that suits your concept of natural (I just picked a light blue swatch for this example).</div>
<div style="margin-left: 40px;"> </div>
<div style="margin-left: 40px;">4. Select the bottom layer.</div>
<div style="margin-left: 40px;"> </div>
<div style="margin-left: 40px;">5. Add a new layer and use the paint bucket tool to fill it with the selected blue. The mask on the top (duplicate) layer should block the color from the vireo and branch.</div>
<div style="margin-left: 40px;"> </div>
<div style="margin-left: 40px;">6. Use the opacity slider on the middle color layer to bring it down a lot.</div>
<div style="margin-left: 40px;"> </div>
<div style="margin-left: 40px;">7. I also added a gradient to the color layer to give the “sky” a bit of variation so it doesn’t look like a single color.</div>
<div style="margin-left: 40px;"> </div>
<div style="margin-left: 40px;">8. Finally, I added curves layer and pulled up the center to brighten everything a bit as the image felt too dark after adding the blue.</div>
<div style="margin-left: 40px;"> </div>
Posted by Richard Ditch on October 7, 2017 at 5:32 PM
Nice job, Dennis. Sampling the sky of an actual contemporary shot is an excellent way to get a more natural looking color. The tendency for most people who try to do this is to go and "maximum blue" that never looks right.
You've made the safest decision by not posting this in Avian, although I think you could probably do so with full disclosure. This isn't much beyond the permitted changes to tone and color that many people already perform.
At least you now have another tool to work with in making your image look the way you want it to.
Discussion
1 repliesRichard's steps are duplicated below.
If you click on the image, you'll get a 1200 pixel version.
<div style="margin-left: 40px;">1. duplicate the background layer so you have two.</div> <div style="margin-left: 40px;"> </div> <div style="margin-left: 40px;">2. Select the vireo and the branch in the upper layer and with it active click on the mask icon to turn the selection into a mask.</div> <div style="margin-left: 40px;"> </div> <div style="margin-left: 40px;">3. Pick a shade of blue that suits your concept of natural (I just picked a light blue swatch for this example).</div> <div style="margin-left: 40px;"> </div> <div style="margin-left: 40px;">4. Select the bottom layer.</div> <div style="margin-left: 40px;"> </div> <div style="margin-left: 40px;">5. Add a new layer and use the paint bucket tool to fill it with the selected blue. The mask on the top (duplicate) layer should block the color from the vireo and branch.</div> <div style="margin-left: 40px;"> </div> <div style="margin-left: 40px;">6. Use the opacity slider on the middle color layer to bring it down a lot.</div> <div style="margin-left: 40px;"> </div> <div style="margin-left: 40px;">7. I also added a gradient to the color layer to give the “sky” a bit of variation so it doesn’t look like a single color.</div> <div style="margin-left: 40px;"> </div> <div style="margin-left: 40px;">8. Finally, I added curves layer and pulled up the center to brighten everything a bit as the image felt too dark after adding the blue.</div> <div style="margin-left: 40px;"> </div>
You've made the safest decision by not posting this in Avian, although I think you could probably do so with full disclosure. This isn't much beyond the permitted changes to tone and color that many people already perform.
At least you now have another tool to work with in making your image look the way you want it to.