- By Design Bundles
- 21 Sep 2018
- 7 Mins
- Photoshop Tutorials
How to Replace the Sky in Photoshop
Step 1: Open base image and duplicate it
In Photoshop, open the image you want to change the sky to.
Then, duplicate it (command/control + J) and hide the background layer for now (click on the small eye icon on the left side of its thumbnail).
Step 2: Select the sky
Double-click on top of your duplicate’s thumbnail to open the layer style panel and in the blending options tab select blue from the blend if field. Move the right-hand lever from this layer to the left until the sky starts to disappear. Depending on the amount of blue present in your sky this will be more or less accurate. To make a smoother transition hold the alt/option key to split the lever in half.
Depending on your image you won’t be able to get rid of the entire sky. To delete the rest, click on the add layer mask button at the bottom of the layers panel to create a mask. Select the brush tool (B), make sure you are using black as the foreground color, give it a large size, and delete as much sky as possible.
Step 3: Recover portions deleted by mistake
It is possible that some portions of the image that you wish to keep disappeared with the blues adjustment. To fix it, turn on your background layer, create another duplicate and add a layer mask to it but hold the alt/option key while creating it to hide everything.
The mask thumbnail should be black.
To have a better view of the spots that need fixing, create a solid color fill layer under the one you just masked. Do it by clicking on the small black & white button at the bottom of the layers panel and choosing a bright contrasting color as fill.
Zoom in to check the edges and details.
Select the mask thumbnail and use the brush tool (B) with black as the foreground color to bring out the parts that require it.
Once you are done, you can delete the color fill layer.
Step 4: Import the replacement sky image
Open the image of the sky you want to add and drag it into your document and place it in between your two masked background duplicates.
Resize it using free transform (command/control + T) and place it in the proper position.
Step 5: Adjust the exposure and vibrance of the original image
Create a new exposure adjustment layer on top of everything, clip it to layer 1 (click on the small button at the bottom of the properties panel).
And adjust the settings to make your image more bright and similar to the new sky.
Create a new vibrance adjustment layer on top of everything and crank the vibrance to +100.
Step 6: Fix the edges of the horizon
To make the edges between the horizon and sky a bit smoother, use the blur tool, make sure you are working on layer 1, and use a small brush with a 10% strength to do so.
Your artwork should look similar to this.
If you liked this tutorial make sure to check out our other Photoshop tutorials like changing the color of objects and creating clipping masks in Photoshop.
6 Related Photoshop Tutorials
If you ever needed a tutorial to replace the sky in Affinity Photo, this is it. Imagine taking a great scenic photo only to have a boring or blown out sky? In Affinity Photo, it’s actually pretty easy to replace a sky. We will be using the Selection Brush ...
This technique is great if you have scanned image with not a clean background to remove.1- Open photoshop.2-Select the Jpeg file you want to remove the background from.3- In layers, select the eclipse icon and select Brightness/contrast.4- Adjust the contrast to make the background as ...
Ensure that your file has been downloaded and unzipped to use.1- Open Photoshop. Select file from the top panel.2- select the image you would like to resize.3- With the file open, click Image icon on the top tool bar and then in the dropdown box Image Resize.4...
The Healing Brush tool is mainly used to correct imperfections in your images by making them disappear into the surrounding portions of the image. The Healing Brush samples pixels from an image or pattern and paints with them. It can also match the characteristics (texture, lighting, transparency, and shading) of ...
The Spot Healing Brush tool can be used as a fast way to remove blemishes and imperfections from your images. The Spot Healing Brush works similarly to the Healing Brush by painting with sampled pixels from an image or pattern matching texture, lighting, transparency, and the shading of the sampled ...
The Patch Tool can be used to repair a selected area with pixels from another area or a pattern. Like the Healing Brush tool, the Patch Tool matches the characteristics (texture, lighting, transparency, and shading) of the sampled pixels to the pixels being healed. You can also use the Patch ...