help needed editing sky separately from the ground

[Peter De Smidt]

The color selection methods, if the landscape horizon and the sky are different colors, is the best way to go. If you're going to do everything manually, then if there are sharp lines, such as a mountain or roof edge, use the pen tool. If there's fuzziness on the horizon, and color tools don't work, then use an appropriate paint brush in Quick Mask mode. Quick Mask mode is very good for refining a mask that you made with other methods. Please don't use the lasso or magic wand tools. It is difficult to be precise with those tools.

Also, don't use the eraser tool. Instead, use a layer mask and paint in black where you don't want the layer to show through. You can always redo it, which you can't always do with the eraser tool.

[Alan Klein]

Have you tried to control the exposure issue when you shoot these kind of shots using a graduated neutral density filter?

[Lenny Eiger]

Old school:
Select the sky, feather a few pixels, save that selection, copy and paste in a new layer.

This is old school, and I would not recommend it anymore. There is no reason to copy a layer, or part of a layer, unless you are using a layer blending mechanism to do your change (or something llike a high pass filter). It unnecessary, and makes the file larger. Adjustment layers are far superior, they are a great way of working. Masking allows for all that control people speak about...

[Daniel Stone]

There are many experienced retouchers out there who probably wouldn't mind little $10-20(just guessing based on my own experience) jobs like this from time to time to put some quick cash in their pockets.

I decided to go this route since I decided I didn't want to sit my life in front of a screen, I'd rather be shooting

But knowing what I want, and being able to clearly convey that to a retoucher who listens well and can "learn" what you like will make things go much smoother/faster in the long run. Again, just quoting what has worked well for me.

-Dan

[andy]

i like to do this sort of masking using alpha channels. It's a little tricky to describe, so I made a video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yAJD...ature=youtu.be

essentially, you copy the channel with the best separation (often the blue) duplicate it, make a curve adjustment to make it stark black and white, clean up the black and white with the brush, load it as a selection, make a new layer mask, and voila. You can then feather the mask if you need.

It's a really quick and simple way to mask complex objects.

[Lenny Eiger]

i like to do this sort of masking using alpha channels.

essentially, you copy the channel with the best separation (often the blue) duplicate it, make a curve adjustment to make it stark black and white, clean up the black and white with the brush, load it as a selection, make a new layer mask, and voila. You can then feather the mask if you need.

This is what one did when it was first invented... however, its even easier now. All you have to do is command-click (on mac) on the channel you want in the channels palette and it will select the channel. Then just create an adjustment layer (curves, maybe) and there you are.... done.

If you click on the RGB channel, presto - luminosity mask.. same for Grayscale...

Lenny

[andy]

Lenny, that's right, but doesn't that build a mask using the values of that layer? I usually do that to make a overall mask to adjust luminosity, but if I'm trying to isolate a section pulling the curve on the duplicate channel gives a hard black and white.

[Lenny Eiger]

Lenny, that's right, but doesn't that build a mask using the values of that layer? I usually do that to make a overall mask to adjust luminosity, but if I'm trying to isolate a section pulling the curve on the duplicate channel gives a hard black and white.

Yes, but you can do the same thing by selecting the mask, either in quick mask, or in the "black and white" mode, (not sure what the correct name is, its when you option click on the mask and you get the black/white interface) and running a curve on that... If I am understanding what you mean...

[andy]

Yes, but you can do the same thing by selecting the mask, either in quick mask, or in the "black and white" mode, (not sure what the correct name is, its when you option click on the mask and you get the black/white interface) and running a curve on that... If I am understanding what you mean...

totally--that's a good trick!

[Lenny Eiger]

totally--that's a good trick!

Here's another... If you are having trouble getting the right separation from a single channel, and you think a mix of the green and blue will do the trick, you can use this little-known feature called "Calculations" to combine two or three channels into a single additional alpha channel. Then mask from there. There are a lot of options, including some blending modes, adding the inverse of a channel, etc. I don't use it much but if you love your channel masking its pretty cool....

My favorite trick, however, is adding and subtracting masks from each other. Once you have selected a sky, then you can create a new adjustment layer with nothing masked, then remove the first mask you made with a command-option-click. Not such a big deal for one selection, as you could just invert it, but when you have two - five areas you want to treat differently, the ability to add and subtract is terrific. (Add is command-shift-click.) If you can't get every part of the sky with one Select by Color Range, or channel selection, then you can make two different selections, and add them together... it's a huge time saver...

Lenny