Replacing sky in a Photoshop finds its applications in situations where our pictures taken in a cloudy weather look dull and greyish. When our sky looks as bad as we don't want to keep the picture, don't panic and try to replace it with nice and colourful blue sky. This tutorial has been made in Photoshop CS5.
We will use a blue sky photo and a scene photo.
1) Start with downloading the blue sky photo (linkable above) and open it in Photoshop
2) Download the scene photo (linkable above). Place the image on the canvas. Go to File > Place and select the picture
3) Adjust the size of the scene photo so the blue sky photo seats ideally underneath it, and hit Enter when ready
Tip: In my case both images have the same dimensions (to make it easy for you), so you don't need to resize them, but if you wish to use different photos, then you might need to resize them
4) Select the scene photo and from the top menu go Layer > Rasterize > Layer
Duplicate the layer by pressing Ctrl + J
Click the eye thumbnail (as shown below) to hide the layer at the top
5) Choose Selection Tool from the tools menu on the left and select the bottom layer (see image below)
6) Choose Lasso Tool from the tools menu on the left
7) Carefully mark the sky and also select a bit inside of the building edge (see image below)
From the top menu go Select > Inverse
8) Select Add layer mask button
9) You now see the blue sky appearing
10) Change the upper layer to be visible and select it
11) From the top menu go Layer > Layer Style > Blending Options
In the Blending Options window select Blend If: Blue from the little drop-down menu
12) Drag the This Layer slider to the left (see image below)
13) The whole composition is getting better, the objects that were hidden are visible now
14) Next step is to hold Alt key, click on the slider to split it, and drag the 2nd part of the slider to the right (see image below)
Tip: Do not copy me in 100% and try to be creative by dragging the values by your own to see what results suit you
15) Once you are satisfied with the results... voilà. Use this quick and easy technique to replace any sky you wish!
