I followed all her steps for the most part, but I used an existing photo I had of sky/clouds instead of using a brush.  And then some of the other instructions I changed up a bit too. Here’s how to do it!

1)  Open the photo that you want to add a sky to.

2)  Open a sky/cloud image and use the “move” tool to position it on top of your photograph. (p.s. I have gone outside and taken 10+ photos of skies.  If you are interested in having them, let me know by leaving a comment and I can e-mail them to you….)

3)  Turn OFF the sky/cloud image by clicking on the little eyeball to the left of it in the layers palette.

4)  With the image layer selected, go into “channels” and click on the blue channel layer.  Duplicate it by dragging the layer down to the “create new channel” icon to the left of the garbage can icon.

5)  Working with the blue channel copy layer, go “ctrl-M” to get into curves. Slide over as instructed on the video (or see my image example below) and click OK.

6)  This is where my instructions change from the tutorial:  With the blue channel copy layer selected (which is now totally black and white), take the magic wand tool and click on the white sky.  There will now be “marching ants” around your white sky selection.

7)  Click back on your layers and click the sky/cloud image layer and click the “eyeball” so it’s visible.

8 )  Create a layer mask by clicking on the layer mask icon (the little icon to the right of “fx”).

9)  Un-link the sky/cloud image and the layer mask – then you’ll be able to move it around and re-size it in step 12.

10)  Don’t worry if it looks like crap right now – you are going to fix that.  :-) With a soft BLACK brush (50% opacity, 50% flow), paint on the “horizon” or where the sky/clouds and the horizon/subject meet.  Paint, paint until you think it looks pretty good.  Don’t worry if you removed too much – if you did, simply select the white brush and paint where you’d like to ADD more sky/clouds.  Remember that black CONCEALS, white REVEALS.

11)  Then this is the COOL part – change the opacity of the sky/cloud image down to like 45% or where you think it looks good.  You can also CLICK ON THE SKY/CLOUD IMAGE directly (NOT the image mask) and go “image”, “adjustments”, “hue/saturation” and slide your color, saturation, and lightness around until you are content.  You can also try changing the blending modes of your sky/cloud image – try multiply, darken, lighten, overlay, etc. at varying opacities to get the look you want.  I just used “normal” though.

12)  You can also click “Ctrl-T” to “transform” your sky/cloud image (remember to click on THAT, NOT your image mask) and you can resize it!  (hold the shift key down and resize from a CORNER – very important so your image doesn’t warp).

13)  Once you are all done, flatten your image (“layer”, “flatten image”), save as a jpeg and you are ready to print!

Here’s some example photos.  Follow along and try it yourself! I’d love to see your results!

left = before/ right = aftersame photo, different sky & clouds.  :-)  Plus changed the hue/saturation. For my next tutorial, I’ll show you how to add rainbows and rainbow flare to a photo.  :-)

where:  my favorite areas of Brooklyn Park.  :-)

when:  Thursday 6/2/11 around 7pm

what it cost me:  $20 – so she could buy a yearbook and an Oreo Blizzard.

who:  my son Jacob (age 17) and his girlfriend Elle (age 16)

when:  Thurs 5/19/11 at about 3:30pm

where:  BP

what:  Jacob & Elle just celebrated their ONE YEAR anniversary on 5/14 so I wanted to get some new photos of them.  More to come as I have time to play with them!  They are so darn cute, are they not?  :-)

Who:  my awesome neighbor, fellow photographer & good friend Nichole and her little man.

When:  Friday 1/21/11

Where:  Quincy Studio & NE Mnpls

What:  Nichole got a sassy new hairdo so we went down to the studio to show her around & take a few head shots.  Of course I had to get some of adorable Karge too!  He is THE sweetest little boy!  I said I wanted to hang around him all the time – he cracks me up!  :-)

Well we got our chance for the outdoor session last night  and it was super super fun!!  My friend Jennie joined us and she was a huge help!  Thanks Jennie! 

Shane (far right)  is our pastor’s son and this is his band.  They won “battle of the bands” to win a spot on stage at the MN State Fair, so congratulations guys!!  They are playing TONIGHT at 7pm so check them out if you get a chance!!  It’s a great opportunity for them!  they were totally willing to do anything we asked!   They look like they are running from crazed teenage girls or something!    Sam the drummer Zach – lead vocals Shane – guitar & vocals A shot of Jennie in action.  She was using a fisheye so can’t wait to see this image!  fun stuff! Here’s my shot!  (btw….used my 24-70 for the whole shoot) I told them to pretend like they were fighting here…hehe! Once we started losing light a little bit (around 8pm) we worked w/ the strobes more.  I was using a vagabond II, alien bee 800 (set to 1/2 power), a 60″ shoot-through umbrella and pocket wizards to fire the light.  I like how it turned out!  yeah, this was before we lost the light obviously….but actually was only like 15 min before the shot above.  Just depends on how you do your camera settings.  used a strobe on this shot too. Love these two!  Oh, and jumping was their idea!  They got some major air!  (and landed pretty hard so we only did it twice!)Thanks guys for having Jennie & I be your official band photographers!  haha!  It was a fun change of pace for both of us! 

btw…………..I posted a lot more photos on my Facebook “Photos By Robin” page. Click “like” and become one of my FANS! 

    As you can see, it was a packed house!  Here’s Scott & Jacob with their commerative Homer Hankies!  Hopefully they’ll be waving those in the World Series!