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1. Re: making white sky blue without artifact in leaves, bird feathers
c.pfaffenbichler Jun 8, 2012 6:42 AM (in response to robirdman1)Hahaha … if there is next to no contract between sky and (light) birdfeathers how do you imagine this process should operate?
In any case posting en example (maybe only some sections) might give us a better idea what you are dealing with exactly.
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2. Re: making white sky blue without artifact in leaves, bird feathers
robirdman1 Jun 8, 2012 9:00 AM (in response to c.pfaffenbichler)In this picture the problem is more the vegetation. I fist use the wand to select the whitish sky with its different shades, and some of the border area of the limbs or flowers and deselect areas of the bird that got seletcted also. In this image there aren't that many feathers thatindividually stand out from the bird, as in others. The yellowish area in the lower left would be a blending problem as well as the flowers. Getting rid of the extra background branches would be a lot of work also. The main thing is after proceding the way I do, there will be halos of a different shade around much or alternatively, such a sudden change at those locations where the fill stops abruptly. Either looks obviously fake at higher magifications.

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4. Re: making white sky blue without artifact in leaves, bird feathers
robirdman1 Jun 10, 2012 8:05 AM (in response to c.pfaffenbichler)I'm sorry, but I am unfamiliar with the method you used. Could you explain in more detail the procedure?
thanks for any help.
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5. Re: making white sky blue without artifact in leaves, bird feathers
Gernot Hoffmann Jun 10, 2012 8:57 AM (in response to robirdman1)robirdman1,
here comes a tutorial:
http://www.fho-emden.de/~hoffmann/skyblue14072008.pdf
Please, try to become familiar with Photoshop Lab - that would
be very helpful.
Best regards --Gernot Hoffmann
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6. Re: making white sky blue without artifact in leaves, bird feathers
robirdman1 Jun 12, 2012 12:31 PM (in response to Gernot Hoffmann)Thanks. this seems very useful, but I am having some problems following the tutorial. I opened an image of my own to follow the steps the steps to clearly understand.
The first thing I was unsure of was the "trick" of Select>Inverse>Inverse. As selecting inverse once does not give another inverse option, did he mean, Select>Inverse, select>inverse (again) If so, I'm not sure why that doesn't give back the original selection, but I proceeded thus,
After creating the new adjustment layer, I was uncertain about whether I was next to use the eyedropper on the tool palette or 1 of the 3 in the curve diagram. I assumed the tool palette as the others change the appearance, but in doing so and moving about my image, I don't see where there is an L value in the info palette to choose 60.
I completed the examples, but then when I tried to actually change a white sky to blue, I found I didn't know how to do it as all the examples just modified a sky that was already blue.
When I created a sky blue color in the color picker, it changed to gray while I was in the curves adjustment layer.
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7. Re: making white sky blue without artifact in leaves, bird feathers
Noel Carboni Jun 12, 2012 4:41 PM (in response to robirdman1)Honestly, an aggressive replacement of that sky comes off looking pretty unnatural.
Have you tried Image - Adjust - Color Balance and just nudging Highlights toward Blue? If doing so seems to shift everything too much to blue, you can counteract some of it by shifting Shadows in the other direction...
-Noel
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8. Re: making white sky blue without artifact in leaves, bird feathers
Gernot Hoffmann Jun 12, 2012 11:15 PM (in response to robirdman1)robirdman1,
yes, I should have written 'apply Select > Inverse' twice, in order to make
the selection boundary at the image boundary visible by 'running ants'.
The purpose of the doc:
1) How to avoid accurate selections by using Magic Wand or Polygonal
Lasso. The technique of conditional blending (blend if) requires some
exercise. My doc contains the explanations for C.Pfaffenbichlers recom-
mendations #3.
2) Answering the question 'which color is sky blue?'
3) How to apply Photoshop Lab
Noel #7 is right - there are many methods how to achieve an effect.
Best regards --Gernot Hoffmann
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9. Re: making white sky blue without artifact in leaves, bird feathers
Lundberg02 Jun 12, 2012 11:22 PM (in response to Gernot Hoffmann)Gernot, your link won't save as a pdf so I had to bookmark it.
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10. Re: making white sky blue without artifact in leaves, bird feathers
Ben Goings Jun 13, 2012 12:59 AM (in response to robirdman1)I dont think using features such as lab are really all that nessary in this case. I would go for a hue-satuation adjustment or color balance(highlights) and then invert the default mask. Then simpy paint on the areas that you wish to be blue. I would make this very subtle however, becasue you could end up with something very unnatural if you go too crazy...
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11. Re: making white sky blue without artifact in leaves, bird feathers
station_two Jun 13, 2012 10:26 AM (in response to Lundberg02)Lundberg02 wrote:
Gernot, your link won't save as a pdf so I had to bookmark it.
The link is working just fine, Lundberg02. Just SINGLE-click on it (not double-click, not right-click, and not Control click) on the Mac and the PDF downloads right away. As a matter of fact, check your downloads history, you may have already downloaded it more than once.
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12. Re: making white sky blue without artifact in leaves, bird feathers
Gernot Hoffmann Jun 13, 2012 11:09 AM (in response to station_two)Thanks, station_two,
I had tested the PDF again - it's really OK. Nothing 'download protected'.
A related doc about image processing in the color space Photoshop Lab:
http://www.fho-emden.de/~hoffmann/labproof15092008.pdf
Best regards --Gernot Hoffmann
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13. Re: making white sky blue without artifact in leaves, bird feathers
Lundberg02 Jun 13, 2012 3:43 PM (in response to Gernot Hoffmann)Station_two is right, there's nothing wrong with the link, but as I posted in a new thread, it seems that I can't save a pdf from Safari 5 in 10.7.4. Gaack! I d/l both your links from Firefox instead. I tried some other pdfs, same deal. Now WTF.
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14. Re: making white sky blue without artifact in leaves, bird feathers
robirdman1 Jun 15, 2012 4:21 AM (in response to Noel Carboni)I just tired this method on another picture with birds, leaves and a white sky. Oddly, when I started moving the blue color balance to the highlights, as suggested, it got more and more magenta, not blue like sky at all. Even all the way to the right, most of the sky looked white with a slight tinge of magenta, while everything else had a very magenta cast. Since the birds have white also, this would make it difficult if it was working, I think.
I didn't understand the other post about reversing the mask.
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15. Re: making white sky blue without artifact in leaves, bird feathers
Gernot Hoffmann Jun 16, 2012 6:23 AM (in response to robirdman1)robirdman1,
I don't have the time to give answers to all your questions. But
let me explain just one problem: How can we convert white sky
into blue sky?
Basically it's done by the mentioned method, in Lab and using
conditional blending (blend if), as explained in my docs (based
on Dan Margulis' book about Lab).
Below we can see the original image and the improved image
which shows as well a very coarse selection for the sky.
The sky in the background is white. Converting white into blue
requires two steps:
1) Reduce the Lab-Lightness drastically. Bright white cannot be
made blue.
2) Shift the b-curve towards blue.
I'm aware of the difficulties using Lab. But it's worth the effort.
Images are not sharpened again after downsampling. Based
on screenshots in order to show the selection.
Best regards --Gernot Hoffmann
Corso Ercole I d'Este, Ferrara, Italy
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16. Re: making white sky blue without artifact in leaves, bird feathers
Noel Carboni Jun 16, 2012 10:04 AM (in response to robirdman1)Color Balance isn't the only tool you have... For the reddish sky in the image you showed above of the Black Capped Night Herons, I'd suggest Image - Adjust - Curves, then pull the white point of the Red curve down a little. Adjust the Green curve similarly, though less - to taste. If you want to get fancy, keep the luminance the same after that adjustment by doing Edit - Fade Curves - Color.
How did I know to do that? Look at the light parts of the image - they're reddish. First thing that came to my mind was to reduce the reddish light.
-Noel
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17. Re: making white sky blue without artifact in leaves, bird feathers
robirdman1 Jun 19, 2012 5:33 AM (in response to Noel Carboni)Using the curves as mentioned worked well on this and even better on some other white sky shots where there was no reddish.
As far as the Edit> Fade colors part though, I don't seem to have that in my edit menu.
Thanks very much.
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18. Re: making white sky blue without artifact in leaves, bird feathers
robirdman1 Oct 15, 2012 8:48 AM (in response to robirdman1)I was returning to this post after a long time since first posting.
I remember a link that showed blending of type that worked well for me before.
It showed examples such as adding color like sky to areas with a model with wispy hair, and I adapted the procedure for my purposes, as it was just what I needed.
I thought I got the link here and returned as I forgot how it was done.
But I have read through the replies and don't see any such reference.
does anyone know where such a tutorial was. It wasn't making the sky lighter.
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20. Re: making white sky blue without artifact in leaves, bird feathers
robirdman1 Oct 21, 2012 1:00 AM (in response to Noel Carboni)Thanks, I did find I had a bookmark for this after posting. That was it
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21. Re: making white sky blue without artifact in leaves, bird feathers
robirdman1 May 17, 2013 2:09 PM (in response to Noel Carboni)I have been using this curves method with great success, first moving down the red , and getting a bluegreen shade and then moving down the green to make it sky blue. It worked on hundreds of shots, and now suddenly something is wrong with the curves function. when I move any of the colors down, there is no change in tinge from the white. I have tried a number of images of the type that always worked before and I do not get a color change moving the sliders down. I think something was accidentally changed but reset doesn't restore the previous capability.
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22. Re: making white sky blue without artifact in leaves, bird feathers
Noel Carboni May 17, 2013 2:15 PM (in response to robirdman1)Sorry for rehashing the basics, but...
- Do you have the image layer targeted?
- Image portion of the layer (vs. mask) targeted?
Perhaps if you'd take a screenshot of your entire Photoshop environment at the moment of the error and post it here someone will be able to spot something that's not set right.
Photoshop is quite modal, and if you don't have everything just so, it can be unforgiving.
-Noel
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23. Re: making white sky blue without artifact in leaves, bird feathers
robirdman1 May 18, 2013 1:28 PM (in response to Noel Carboni)This is the type of shot that the technique used to work great on.
There is only one layer. I used the wand to select most of the white.
Attached is the screen shot. Before when I pulled the red down, the sky would get greenish blue. Now it stays white and if I go further a branch (out of focus and included in the selection) starts turning red.
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24. Re: making white sky blue without artifact in leaves, bird feathers
conroy May 18, 2013 1:35 PM (in response to robirdman1) -
25. Re: making white sky blue without artifact in leaves, bird feathers
Noel Carboni May 18, 2013 2:54 PM (in response to conroy)Conroy's got it right. I've noticed over time that the grayscale curves dialog sometimes reverts to "backwards" operation.
Once you swap it, then complete a Curves operation it should stick the "right" way again for future operations.
-Noel
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26. Re: making white sky blue without artifact in leaves, bird feathers
robirdman1 May 18, 2013 5:21 PM (in response to conroy)Strange - as I thought I had switched to Pigment in an attempt to resolve the problem without effect. However, changing it back to light did return the previous functionality. Thanks very much for solving this.
This forum is the most helpful one of several I have posted various problems to. Often very quick solutions, while elsewhere problems remain unsolved for ages, such as the Recaptcha forum, where I haven't been able to get it to even show, for months.
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27. Re: making white sky blue without artifact in leaves, bird feathers
Noel Carboni May 18, 2013 6:00 PM (in response to robirdman1)You're welcome, for my part. Thanks for making it easy to help.
I've found that screenshots are a great way (with Photoshop at least) to get to an accurate answer.
-Noel










