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Figure 1.
Photos © 1999, Darryl C. Nicholas, All Rights Reserved
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Many photographs will have
a white sky because the contrast range of the film was not great enough
to capture the much brighter sky and show its blue color. This is especially
true when shooting color negative film. Slide film--with its greater
tone range--will usually do a little better job of capturing the blue
color in the sky. Still, it is often necessary to add a little blue
into the sky of pictures.
In real life the color of blue in the sky is more saturated (darker
shade of blue) higher up and less saturated (lighter shade of blue)
nearer the horizon. So, when we put the blue back into the sky in a
photograph, we use the Gradient Fill tool in Photoshop and lay in a
color of blue that is more saturated at the top and less saturated nearer
the horizon.
After doing some shooting at our local Renaissance Fair, I used my Nikon
LS-2000 scanner to scan some of the 35mm color negatives into my computer.
Figure 1 shows one of the images that immediately caught my eye.
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I decided it would make a much
better photograph if I cropped it for a vertical and framed in on just
one of the two riders. See Figure 2.
Now that the picture has been a little better composed, I noticed that
the sky was washed out. It needed some blue color.
If you have a recently scanned photograph that shows some nice blue sky,
you can use the Color Picker in Photoshop to select the blue, and thereby
obtain the numerical designation it carries. If you don't, you can
use the numbers that I have selected below. They should work well in most
cases where you need a blue sky.
First set up the Foreground and Background colors in Photoshop. In order
to do this, go to the Color selector options and set the Foreground colors
to: Red = 69; Green = 123; Blue = 186.
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See Figure 3.
Then, switch the Foreground to the Background, and set the Background
colors to: Red = 219; Green = 253; Blue = 255.
See Figure 4.
After you have set the Background color to the lighter shade of blue,
switch the colors back so that the darker shade of blue will be the Foreground
color.
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See Figures 5, 6, and 7 (below).
Set the Gradient tool options to: Normal; Opacity: 100 percent; Gra-dient:
Foreground to Background; Type: Linear.
See Figure 8.
Next, you have to select the portion of the image that is the sky. You
will probably be able to do this with the Magic Wand tool. But, there
are several other methods for making a selection.
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Use the Magic Wand tool and
select the area of the picture that you want to fill with blue sky.
Set the Magic Wand options to a Tolerance of about 30. You may have to
adjust that setting a bit in order to select the area of the sky that
you want.
See Figures 9 and 10.
In order to select the small, enclosed areas that the Magic Wand tool
might miss, select those additional areas by left-clicking on them while
holding down the shift key.
See Figures 11, 12, and 13.
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The selection process (using
the Magic Wand) effectively establishes a mask over everything in the
picture except the sky. Therefore, whatever you do to the picture after
a selection has been made occurs only to the selected area.
When you have correctly selected all the areas of the sky into which you
want to fill with blue color, select the Gradient Fill tool and drag a
"line" (use the left mouse key) from the top of the picture
through the bottom of the area where the sky is to be filled.
See Figure 14.
Do not draw the "line" through the entire picture--only through
the area of the sky.
If you have made a mistake, as long as you have not de-selected your selection,
you can simply redraw the Gradient Fill line through the image again.
Or, you can go to the Edit pull-down menu to the Un-do command.
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After I filled the sky with
gradient blue color, I noticed that the rest of the picture was a bit
low in contrast and color saturation. So, I went to the Photoshop toolbar,
to Select, to Inverse. This inverses the area protected by the selection
and, in effect, masks only the sky, while leaving everything else in the
picture available to be worked on.
Then, in the Photoshop toolbar, I went to Image, to Adjust, to Brightness/Contrast.
I darkened the image a little, and increased the contrast a little until
I thought the picture looked better. The blue filled sky remained unchanged
while I did this.
See Figure 15.
When the picture looks like what you want, save it.
We frequently use this same technique to create a background for a picture
when the original background is excessively cluttered, or would require
excessive time to restore with the Rubber Stamp tool. By selecting different
color combinations, you can create an endless number of different backgrounds.
If you'd like help with your digital imaging problems, e-mail me
at: editorial@shutterbug.com.
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