Cloud Replacement, Technique #1

Because we can’t control whether clouds show up at our shooting location or not, the art of cloud replacement (taking a beautiful or interesting sky from a different image and adding it to your original, empty, cloudless sky image in Photoshop) has become incredibly popular—many top pros now do this without batting an eye. So, since this has become so commonplace, I wanted to give you a couple of techniques for how to do it. Before you start, there are a few things to keep in mind, so the sky you’re bringing in looks natural: (1) Make sure the sun is hitting the clouds from the same side as in the bald sky image. If it’s not, once you’ve made a selection of the cloud image, bring up Free Transform (found under the Edit menu), then Right-click inside the bounding box and choose Flip Horizontal to flip the clouds, so the sun (and any shadows) are on the proper side. (2) The clouds you’re bringing in should match the overall tone of your image. Don’t bring a sunset sky into a daylight shot, and vice versa. (3) Ideally, the clouds you’re bringing in should be shot with a similar lens, so their size and shape look right. Images shot with a 200mm lens will probably look out of place when added to a wide-angle shot. With all that in mind, here’s a Photoshop technique you should try first: Copy-and-paste the cloud image over the bald sky, then click on the layer blend mode pop-up menu (in the top left of the Layers panel) and scroll through each blend mode to see an onscreen preview of how those clouds will look blended with that image. I usually find that Multiply, Soft Light, or Overlay look the best, but of course, it depends on the image. Also, consider lowering the opacity of this layer a bit, too, to help it blend in.