Changing Sky in Elements 10

[NeilSmaf]

I need some help in replacing or improving sky on photos I've taken. I took the photo's last weekend at Aydon Castle in Corbridge. The main subjects in the photo's (that being the castle itself) are ok and I can make necessary amendments to them using the adjust lighting options. With the weather last Saturday not being great some of the shots have a gray sky, I do have other shots from previous shoots that have better sky. So how can I replace the sky using photoshop elements 10? Any links to tutorials would be great.

[GeoffWessex]

1. Open both images - the pic of Aydon Castle and the one you want to use the sky from. With the sky shot, try to make adjustments so that it suits the Castle image as well as possible, in terms of saturation etc.

2. On the Castle shot, make a careful selection of the area you want to replace - shouldn't be too difficult, probably using the 'Magic Wand'. Do not 'Feather'.

3. On the sky shot, Select all (Ctrol/Cmd A), Copy All (Ctrl/Cmd C).

4. Go back to the castle shot and, in the Edit menu, choose 'Paste into Selection' (Shift+Ctrol/Cmd+V).

5. Select the 'Move' tool (V). Move, stretch or shrink the sky around until you've got what you want showing in the Selection.

6. You may need to Flatten the image and then zoom in really close to tidy up any edges with a small Blur brush.

7. Viola!

Alternatively, you could have the two images open, make the same selection as above in the Castle shot, but go then to Select - Inverse. Open your sky shot but then, with the Move tool, drag the Castle image selection onto the sky shot...... it then forms a new layer. An advantage to this method is that you can give that new layer a Mask and brush out any excess bits (black brush on the Mask).

[NeilSmaf]

Thanks for that Geoff.

I've decided to wait a bit longer before I edit those photo's as I don't have enough sky shots to use. Hopefully the weather might start improving so that I can start gaining stock photos

[GeoffWessex]

Good idea........ I keep a folder of decent sky photos - but if you're in a hurry you can get some from Flickr's Sky Junkies.