Editing the sky in a landscape image is a critical skill for creating a compelling final product. However, many photographers, especially beginners, struggle with over-processing the sky, making it appear unnatural and detracting from the overall image. This helpful video tutorial will show you six common mistakes and how to improve your sky edits.
Coming to you from Andrea Livieri, this great video addresses six common mistakes made when editing skies and provides solutions for each. One major mistake is over-saturating the sky, which can make the colors look unrealistic and overwhelming. The solution lies in making subtle adjustments and using selection masks to target the sky specifically. Another mistake is incorrect white balance adjustment, which can lead to a loss of color depth and definition. The video also tackles the issue of poor mask transitions between the sky and other elements in the landscape. Using tools like AI sky selection in conjunction with gradient tools can create more natural transitions that aren't glaringly obvious.
Contrast control is another area where many go wrong. Excessive clarity and contrast can make the sky appear over-processed and unnatural. The video recommends a more measured approach — hesitant almost. Additionally, noise in the sky is a common problem, often caused by default sharpening settings in editing software. Livieri suggests adjusting the masking value in the sharpening settings to exclude the sky and selectively applying noise reduction only to the sky area. Check out the video above for the full rundown from Livieri.
Thank You for the great INFO, YES I am guilty of all at one time or another. Thank you for showing how to correct in the many ways. This I printed and stared for to look back at to make sure I do not do again! One thing missed is sensor dust when doing the Sharpening or selecting the healing section there is a box at the bottom check mark and you will see the dust shown as circles but the thing most missed is the the large circles and that is dust on the lens inside between lens and sensor part, the glass outside part. I mention because a lot of captures are done wide open and landscape is done f/8-f/11 or whatever gets clarity near and far or even doing merging sections. The sky shows the dust even in clouds. Just a share of first steps.
Absolutely brilliant tutorial. I consider myself a really experienced LR Classic user, but this really added to my knowledge and will really improve how I handle skies. I can't thank you enough. I knew most of the facts and tricks (but not all) but this video brings them all together so well. A must, whatever your knowledge level