A while back I did a Photoshop tutorial on replacing the sky in some wildlife photos. After the tutorial I started to see some really bad examples of the technique, so hopefully we can help that out today. Enjoy!
PS: I asked this in my email that brought you to this page, but apparently some people missed it. While I’m happy to read your overall comments and thoughts, please fell free to NOT leave long preachy comments about how much you dislike sky replacements. Thanks!
I love teaching and photography... In that order. I feel that enjoying photography, and photo editing can get WAY too complicated. So my personal mission (and favorite thing to do), is to create education that simplifies the process of taking great photos, and how to edit them to get the results you’ve always wanted.
Hi Matt: I just purchased your “Master the Skies with AI” A good bit of it is a bit over my head, but I have had some degree of success with the sky replacement tool. My question is, how do I add my own photographed skies to the skies available in the program? I have been collecting many skies to use in some of my old photos that were shot with my older Nikon D100, a 6 megapixel DSLR. I’ve upgraded to a more current model, a low end Nikon D5600. For me it is all that I need to have some fun with my images. All of your courses are terrific, but I need to go gradually and repeat the videos to get the full benefit. Thanks, Matt.
Hi Jim. You also purchased the extra skies and there’s a video on how to install them. You’d add your own through the same method. Hope that helps. Thanks!
Great tutorial. Great attitude! You never see anyone back up and take responsibility, even if it’s a mild little thing like this. I have replaced skies since before it ever showed up in a program, and the hardest part was always making it look like it was real. No change from the “good old days” until now. You could still make a photo look like crap, it was just a lot more work.
Thanks for all the great tutorials, even ones that can be abused by the “masses”.
I have not been able to take enough decent wildlife photos to even feel the need to try to enhance any. I have bigger problems with wildlife photography. Ah, Photomatix, I still have it from way back then. I used it aiming for realistic images that my little “pro-sumer” camera shooting only jpegs, or early mirrorless cameras, could not manage by itself in a single image. But, with LrC and PS and better cameras shooting RAW, I have not used Photomatix is years, now.
Good presentation. Though I don’t actually use Photoshop. I’m happy with Adobe Lightroom, both its it’s photo management and editing capacity.
Gotta love an instructor, pro photographer, who steps up to help others. So impressed with Matt’s way of explaining why something might have gone wrong. No photo-shaming, just clarifying the small changes that could prevent the problem in the future. Not a sky replacer myself but if I ever needed to (for any reason I cannot think of currently), I would check out what Matt K had to say on the subject. Really appreciate his style of instruction over many others out there.
Glad I watched this. I like what you showed here. I try to tread lightly on sky adjustments but sometimes those darn sliders just get away from you.
Can’t wait to try out using a blur and opacity reduction. Good stuff. Onward to the course ! Thanks
Thank you for your nice explanation. I always enjoy it.
Excellent information. Thanks!
Great lesson… reminded me of the good old days, watching the “PHOTOSHOP GUYS”. You guys were great. I learned a lot from you, Scott Kelby and Dave Cross.
I can see by some of the comments that now EVERYBODY is an expert. Don’t let all the noise get to you, keep up the good work.
Thanks Randy 🙂
I have two issues with sky replacement. First, why lie about it? If it’s so bad that people are questioning whether it was done, then it’s an insult to those people to lie and claim that it wasn’t done. These days, it’s a big issue with AI in general, where people are pawning off AI generated images as their own photography.
The second issue is that the image is now a composite of the photographers’ photo and someone else’s. I take my own sky photos. And one of my selection criteria for which photo to use is whether the sun is in the same position as the sky I’m replacing. In the end, the image is still my image; it’s just not a photograph.
Hi. I’m not saying you’re right or wrong. I’m saying yours is one opinion.
Anyway, their photo was on their instagram page. Nobody is buying pictures of birds in the sky anymore – and most definitely not photos of poorly replaced skies of a bird in the sky. So who does it hurt as long as you abide by Instagram’s terms of service (which they did – they have no requirement to disclose anything to you about their photo). They’re not mis-reprepresenting it for journalistic, commercial or documentary purposes. I wouldn’t do it… you wouldn’t do it… but they most certainly can, and they have to live with the consequences (some random guy on the internet doing a video about their poorly replaced sky) 🙂
Great information
In one of your courses you did a sky replacement with motion blur….. in my opinion, that worked great for birds flying left to right and visa versa. I had a boring bird, with blue sky, added clouds, but with motion blur, made a world of difference.
Hi Matt
The sky replacement program was superb!!
You have a real talent for making complicated issues look easy
Thank you
Technically, your replacement was done well. But the lighting coming from the lower left on the eagle, and the lighting coming from the upper right on the clouds does not match. Regardless of the “appropriateness” of replacing the sky, it looks obviously “fake” if the lighting direction, intensity, or color temperature don’t match. That would be a fail regardless of whether one thinks sky replacement is okay or not. Perhaps this is a good topic for an another video? You are an excellent teacher, and I’d like to hear your wisdom about how to match the sky with the content.
I sometimes replace a sky.
We have a lot of colourless skies here that really bring a photo down.
My aim is to do it subtly.
Same comment!
A lot of good points here, and although I don’t do Wildlife, you definitely educated me on the finer points of sky replacement. I have done my share of sky replacements on landscape and travel photos, and I think I can skip the first part because blurring of the clouds isn’t necessary. But I really like the second part, and will be using the opacity function on all future sky replacements. Thanks!
I do like to replace the sky for the fineart type of pictures.
Wildlife life picture should not have the sky replaced unless desired for fineart.
I replace sky all the time
Thx! Yes, it’s usually very obvious when someone swaps in a sky and it’s the “wrong” sky for the scene. I’m no purist. I do fine art photography (not documentary), so feel perfectly justified substituting skies (ones I’ve shot, or others’). I make an effort to match the skies and the ambient light logic to the image I’m putting a replacement sky into. But, I’ve never blurred the swapped in skies. I’m going to try that going forward. It sounds like one more fun dimension to play with. Take care.
The advice in the video is good and useful and relates to any changes being applied. For landscapes, another area that isn’t always taken into consideration is the angle of direct and indirect light.
From the comments below, most of your viewers are photographers and are using your lessons as guide for that format. Others will use these guides as a general instruction for other digital media, such as scene creation in 3D software.
Irrespective of the medium, the lessons still apply and anything that helps to improve a person’s editing or creation skills is a worthwhile investment in time.
thank you!! yes, people need to know this kind of info…
You are so wonderfully honest. This is one of the reasons why I follow you like a bee to honey. Cree and Tom Bol really like you and your teaching, so I follow you because of their recommendations. I have never been disappointed. Congrats on being so REAL!
Bonnie Freeland
Thanks for more great tips
Good job on providing the need for an eye that looks to produce realistic results, not just cookie cutter eye candy. Besides the tips you cover, I also pay attention to light direction and flip the sky when needed and I will tinker with the color and brightness settings of the sky replacement to make sure it fits the lighting of the subject (if I don’t have the perfect sky to put in to start with).
Thanks for doing this one.
Seems to be the right way to go. Personally, I haven’t used sky replacements due to the fact that there are packages that offer sky replacements, and they really look fake just by looking at the “box”. Maybe I have to reconsider after learning more and use sky’s that look appropriate.
An additional problem with the starting “bad” image is that the light direction on the clouds (from the right) and on the bird (from the left) don’t match. One could flip the sky right-to-left to solve this problem at least. But that issue should always be considered when doing sky replacements.
The sign of an excellent tutor – admitting when things haven’t gone as planned. You broadcast to a wide based audience. Thank you!
Nice video Matt; thank you. I try not to replace the sky but I have nothing against it. And the pointers you provide here are certainly things I will keep in mind for those occasions where sky replacement seem like the way to go to give the image that last push to get to our vision.
Thanks, welcome advice to thinking about what we are doing and why and not just applying a “fix” and that’s it.
Thanks, Matt. I haven’t tried sky replacement yet.
Basic question: I have taken sky pictures. How do I put them “someplace” so when I go to “sky replacement”, the choices appear in those little boxes like Adobe’s ?
There are almost always wild birds hanging around the pods/lakes at zoos, so I photograph them in flight when I can.
Sky replacement for me is generally using skies I shot in the same approximate location.
Funny story. I shot a California Condor sitting on a branch. The sky was bright white behind it after properly exposing for the bird. A little fence showed up behind him so rather than cloning out the fencing I added a slightly blue, but mostly cloudy sky behind him as a sky replacement. SInce the replacement sky had mostly clouds right behind the Condor I didn’t have to worry much about the selection of the bird.
When I turned the shot in to the marketing department of the zoo, they loved it and decided to use it on the front of an Impact Report. (Sort of a “how are we doing with our conservation efforts kind of thing.) Prepared like a magazine.
But they cut the California Condor out of the background to use it. When I moved away, they gave me a large canvas print of the front of the report with my Condor photo on it and the Admin staff all signed it.
It is on the wall of my home office, reminding me that when I shoot for someone else, what I think looks better doesn’t always matter.
Sorry Matt. I am old school. I am very opposed to adding skies. In, my opinion, it’s not real. You even stated in your video “if you want to make it realistic…”. But, this is just my opinion. I know there is a big debate on whether photographs should capture a moment in time, or be created as art. Thanks for the video.
Hi, Blaine and Matt. I agree with Blaine: if you are a wildlife photographer, you should not be replacing skies. There are ethics involved. Are you a wildlife photographer or a digital artist? As Blaine states, “If you want to make it realistic,” you intended not to disclose that sky replacement was used. Transparency is the key; don’t deceive viewers. If you use sky replacement within your wildlife or nature images, you must disclose that it was used. I don’t have a problem with digital art; creativity with new tools is fine. Human imagination and creativity should be encouraged. However, you can’t call this photography; it’s digital art. Truth matters! We have a whole new world built on lies, where now and in the future, what is true and what is a lie can’t be distinguished. Photos will be used for all kinds of nefarious purposes. For example, I found a new species; in reality, I only changed the feather colors or the shape of tail feathers to say that I have proof of a new hummingbird species found high in the Andes in one location. My suggested Facebook feed posts are full of AI-generated posts, suggesting reality and distorting the natural world. My question, Matt, is whether you are a wildlife photographer or a digital art teacher since you didn’t take bird and wildlife imagery at one point not that long ago. This goes beyond removing dust spots, making contrast adjustments, and using other similar traditional photographic tools. It’s a sea change! Soon as AI technology improves, every photograph will be questioned journalistically and for its nature authenticity. Did this actually happen? Was this animal behavior actually real? Disclosure and transparency are essential!
Hi. You’re of course entitled to your opinions, and I’m sure you’re not alone. I do hope you’ll respect my choice to not get involved in this discussion. I tried to avoid it by writing this
“(Though, please avoid the long preachy comments about how much some of you dislike sky replacements in general… we get it)”
I apologize ahead of time but it’s just old and tired. It’s been had thousands of times and I just don’t want to spend more time adding to it. Thanks. PS: I started bird and wildlife photography nearly 10 years ago – pretty sure that allows me to speak to it at a high level and call myself what I choose to 🙂
Hi Matt,
Thank you for your response. Since I have been taking courses and classes from you for over 20 years, your significant move to include wildlife photography seemed more recent than ten years ago. That’s my fault for not being precise.
My point is that if you publish your eagle with the sky replacement in a public venue without disclosure, it deceives the viewers, raises unrealistic expectations, and represents a non-natural but imaginary moment. I have no problem with it if you are transparent; then, the viewer can decide how they feel, knowing that AI technology was used to create this wildlife art and some parts of the image came from the artist’s imagination. Call it digital art or Alternate Reality, as NANPA does. I added a moon to an ancient bristlecone pine twilight image from the next night. Yet, I placed it in NANPA’s 2025 Alternative Reality category, where it belongs.
I also feel that promoting this new AI – technology, especially in the field of nature and journalism, as a widely respected teacher and influencer, you have a responsibility to outline the ethics of this new technology. Your explanation of “it’s old and tired and has been had thousands of times” isn’t good enough since you are in both worlds. Not everyone gets it. There are new viewers each time you send out one of your lessons. From the comments, I see many photographers learning from you, that I don’t get it.
Yes, I know you are tired of this discussion, but one straightforward line about disclosure: if you publish your work or make it public, be ethical with these new AI-generated tools and don’t deceive. That’s all I am asking because the consequences are enormous. You might not feel so, and that’s your opinion. For the reasons I took great pains to mention if I were in your shoes, I would certainly include this small disclaimer.
Sincerely, Bruce.
I mostly disagree with you Bruce, but hopefully we can still be friends 🙂
Hi Matt,
We can disagree on this point with no animosity. I don’t know you well enough to call you a friend. However, I respect you as a teacher of digital tools, and I especially have enjoyed your podcasts with Blake Rudis, although I am on his side, as photography is more art than a craft. I hope you think deeply about our feelings and opinions on transparency and disclosure for nature and journalism subjects.
I saw your comment to John Isaacs. On Instagram and Facebook, AI photography posters don’t even use their actual names; a few now use well-known and famous environment person names. Social media is like the Wild West, so there is no accountability, no serious rules, or rule checkers, and no one is held responsible for their actions. So yes, harm is being done. I believe you’ll continue to get more comments and critiques about AI technology as it blurs and distorts what photography essentially is unless you ethically address these issues as a prominent teacher of these new tools.
Bruce
Great video and a perfect suggestion to bring it back to zero and then add it back with the philosophy that less is better.
Hey Matt. Thanks so much for this. I admit I didn’t see your original tutorial but this one really was helpful to me on its own. I’m not normally a sky replacer on my wildlife photos, but should I ever want to this told me the most important things to know. I might give it a try now sometime. Thanks for all your teaching. I always learn something from you.
Rather than sky replacement, the issue is with a lack of understanding composition and the use of positive and negative space. Sky replacement is not going to improve a poorly composed image, much to the disappointment of many.
I liked the slight color change in the sky you made with the blue tone. However I feel it does not match the lighting on the underneath feathers of the bird. They look to be too bright to match the over all scene of the image. I am assuming there was no flash used to capture the shot.
Hi Matt,
I completely agree with you and use sky replacement for both wildlife and landscape, although to me both have their challenges. While I do choose to reduce opacity as you do, I don’t generally use blur per se. Instead, my go to method is to use Scale in Sky Replacement. I find that this does a couple of things….it seems to create a natural blur and the advantage is that I can move it around so that it looks completely different in photos depending on what section of the enlargement I choose. This is especially important to me in wildlife sky replacement where you don’t want to make the sky a distraction. In fact, I never choose to use the stock photos that have defined clouds for wildlife, and even with landscape I’m very careful.
I travel overseas outside the US frequently and I find that I need to be careful not to use a sky from somewhere else if at all possible when I’m doing a landscape sky replacement because the light, color and cloud formations can sometimes be very different and give the photo an odd or artifical look. To avoid this, I make sure to take some shots of the skies in the area that I’m in if at all possible and then label them so that when I’m in post process and can pick a sky that is believeable. That’s why I don’t think a lot of the Adobe stock skies that they provided in Sky Replacement really work. Although the one you chose with the whispy clouds is one I do tend to use more often then the others if I’m not using my own.
Thanks for all your pointers and videos!
Totally agree about the skies in different locations. Here in the Midwest, we get clouds, but they’re nothing like the fabulous, luminous piles of cloud on the Florida coast. Yes, I admit to cloud envy.
Matt,
I just purchased your Sky Replacement Course and got fired up and then I watched this video. Since I take mostly wildlife photos, I’m wondering if I mis-spent my money. I have most of your course from which I learned so much. Just wondering if this was a good purchase for me. I have always valued your input and advice so I’m counting on some more from you. Thanks and Hi to Diana. Neal
Thanks Matt. It was a great learning experience for me.
Appreciate the honesty…. and the guidance!!!
Thank You for this.
I enjoy the sky replacement.
Thank you Matt, well done, very informative in a very short time.
Thanks for the reminders! Getting something that is believable is the key in any kind of ‘composite’ type of work and I’ve made my fair share of blunders too. Lighting is definitely the key – but a reminder about blurring the clouds helps too – thanks!
Matt is bang on . It is important that skies look natural when replacing them. The subject lighting and the sky need to look natural and believable
Very helpful! I use my own skies but burring and changing opacity are good tips.
Matt,
Thank you for this. I have seen quite a difference in images I have modified using your instructions.
Chuck
Matt,
Different isn’t wrong, it’s different. Just say what you did when someone asked you what you did. And someday someone will capture that osprey zooming over their head with a wide angle lens and the clouds may be sharp.
Thank you for your candid and helpful comments on sky replacement. I have made same mistakes.
Great content. Thank you. I work with skies all the time in real estate photography. So much craziness out there in creating skies that are impossible to believe.
Great video. It’s a nice reminder that when we get married to the technique, we often forget that the end product has to be believable and not compete with what we are trying to say in the photograph. I certainly remember the old days of HDR and fully agree with you. Also, the lighting of the subject has to match the lighting of the sky and the background. Thanks for posting this, Matt!
Did he mention “lighting of the subject has to match the lighting of the sky?” That’s a great point.
Very good advice. I’m going to go back and “fix” some of my earlier mistakes.