Making sky one shade of white (with fiddly bits)

[emmaa44204992]

Hi - I am having trouble getting the sky on this one shade of white. I don't have the original raw image due to a catastrophic PC meltdown so all I have is this image which I previously cropped and adjusted contrast etc on. When I had it printed professionally the clouds, as they are so faint, just looked like marks on the image. I therefore just want to make the whole sky area (including the fiddly bits around the man/scaffold/ladder) one totally uniform shade of white as I think this will look much better in print. I hope this makes sense.

I am pretty new to photography and PS and I have not been able to find any answers to this specific issue yet. Any (easy to follow for a beginner) help would be hugely appreciated. Thanks so much.

Em x

www.setosw.com

[davescm]

Hi

Try this:

Add a color fill layer above the image and set it to White.

Right click on the new color fill layer in the layers panel and open the blending options.

Under blend If drag the lower black slider to the right till the sky details just disappear

Take a black brush and paint on the mask of the colour fill layer to "restore" the grey on the man's hat and back

Dave

[emmaa44204992]

Hi Dave - thanks SO much for this. I have done everything (an is looking fab) apart from the last bit

"Take a black brush and paint on the mask of the colour fill layer to "restore" the grey on the man's hat and back"

I think I might need a bit more detail on how to do this? If it is not too much trouble

Em x

[davescm · Accepted solution]

Hi Em

When you look at the colour fill layer in the layers panel you see two squares. The left one represents the fill (which is white because that is the way we set it) and the right represents the mask.

Where a mask is white it shows whatever is on that layer.  Where it is black the layer becomes transparent and the pixels from the layer below show through.

Taking out the clouds actually took out a small part of the man's hat. So.......

Select a small brush and set it to black.

Go to the layers panel and click once on the mask square. You will see a small border appear around it to show it is selected.

Now go to the image itself and brush with the  black brush. No black will appear but the white will become transparent where you brush, showing the original layer below. So that way you can bring back the lost section of his hat and the back of his jacket. If you go to far change the brush to white and where you brush will show the colour fill layer.

I hope that helps

Dave

[emmaa44204992]

Amazing! Thanks so much Dave. It would have taken me an age to get there on my own. I really appreciate the help. Em x