Replace sky in Lightroom using Photoshop round trip
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I've won many Adobe teaching awards and recently reached a huge milestone....I have now had over a million people worldwide who have studied using my online courses like this one!
What’s in the course?
- - White balance
- - Temperature and color correction
- - Masking
- - Portrait
- - Wedding
- - Landscape
- - Wildlife
- - Automotive
- - Event
- - Architectural
- - Drone
- - Travel
- - Product
- - Food
- - Soften and smooth skin texture
- - Highlight eyes and whiten teeth
- - Enhance hair and make eyes and lips really stand out in a portrait
- - Remove unwanted elements from a photograph
- - Color grade videos
- - Reduce noise and graininess from photos
- - Best practices for white balance, temperature & color correction.
- - Unlock the power of masking.
- - You’ll cover all types of photography genres including Portrait, Landscape, Wedding, Night, Wildlife, Automotive, Event, Architectural, Drone, Travel, Product Food.
- - You’ll know how to color grade like a professional, simple grades and then moving into distinctive powerful color grades to make your images really pop.
- - You’ll retouch images, making skin smoother, eyes & teeth whiter. Make hair, eyes and lips standout in portraits.
- - Learn how to remove parts of an image.
- - Learn how to color grade videos.
- - You’ll even learn when and how it might be appropriate to jump out to Adobe Photoshop.
- - Do you have noisy, grainy images? After this course, you’ll know what tools and techniques to use to remove it.
- - Learn how to add the noise, grunge & grain back in for a powerful visual statement.
- - Need to work fast? You’ll learn where to find and how to use the best Presets, LUTS & Profiles.
- - You’ll take your skills and apply your edits in bulk to a huge group of images all at once.
- - Learn Lightroom's amazing organizational abilities. Quickly sorting, comparing, searching, grading & backing up images.
- - You'll learn the best settings for printing your images and sharing on social media without losing details and how to package up a shoot and easily share with a client
- - Adobe Lightroom CC Desktop (not Lightroom Classic)
- - No prior knowledge or experience with Lightroom is required
- - No prior knowledge or experience in Photography is required
- - This course is really aimed at people new to photo editing software and photography in general. We’ll start right at the beginning and work our way through step by step.
- - You might be using the biggest fanciest camera in the world or shooting on your phone that’s held together mostly with sellotape. It doesn’ matter, Lightroom is amazing for both.
Daniel Walter Scott
Founder of Bring Your Own Laptop & Chief Instructor
I discovered the world of design as an art student when I stumbled upon a lab full of green & blue iMac G3’s. My initial curiosity around using the computer to create ‘art’ developed into a full-blown passion, eventually leading me to become a digital designer and founder of Bring Your Own Laptop.
Sharing and teaching are a huge part of who I am. As a certified Adobe instructor, I've had the honor of winning multiple Adobe teaching awards at their annual MAX conference. I see Bring Your Own Laptop as the supportive community I wished for when I was first starting out and intimidated by design. Through teaching, I hope to bring others along for the ride and empower my students to bring their stories, labors of love, and art into the world.
True to my Kiwi roots, I've lived in many places, and currently, I reside in Ireland with my wife and kids.
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Transcript
Hi everyone, in this video we are going to answer the age-old question...
can I replace the sky in Lightroom...
not adjust it, not fix it, but actually just put some other sky on there...
like this one, look at it, how cool it is...
and it blends in nicely, and the answer is "No," no, you can't do it...
you need Photoshop, so that's what we'll do in this video...
I will show you how to round trip from Lightroom, over to Photoshop...
and back again into Lightroom...
there's just some things that Lightroom cannot do, just not designed to do it...
and it's got this buddy Photoshop, it's good friends with him...
they'd love to send them some of this hard work...
so let's jump in and I'll show you how to do it.
Hi everyone, bring in the image, it's called 'Sky Replacement', bring it in...
I've done a basic edit on it now to get it looking...
a little bit more Gothic-ey, it's up to you...
now we can't just replace this guy in Lightroom...
we can enhance it, we can go through and play...
with the lights and the dark, select it...
and you know, this is a bit of a boring sky...
even with our effect, like Dehaze, we crank it up...
actually, there's some cool stuff in there.
Ignore Dehaze, let's pretend there's nothing cool in there...
we need to change it...
it's a tourist, it's a tourist photograph...
we want to say, pretend the island is always sunny, not gray, all the time...
all the time, did I say that aloud, anyway...
so we need to replace this guy, and Photoshop is perfect for it...
so let's do a little round trip and then I'll talk a bit more about Photoshop...
and we'll do a quick version, come on, Dan, be quick.
So just right click your image and go 'Edit in Photoshop'...
you need to have Photoshop installed...
you need some basic Photoshop skills, and there it is, look, it's in Photoshop...
so Lightroom, Photoshop, let's just do it, Dan, and then talk about it more.
So I'm going to show you the most amazing feature...
under 'Edit' there's one called, where is it, 'Sky Replacement', oh...
hold your horses, you ready?
Oh my goodness, like a terrible sky, but I wanted it that way...
I wanted this dark gloomy one...
let's do it again, you ready? Blue skies, for the tourists...
ah, blue sky...
I'll go through this a little bit more, because sky replacement is cool...
what I want to do is do the, the round trip first, so I'm going to click 'OK'...
Photoshop's added a bunch of layers, I hit 'Save'...
and I'm going to close it...
you got to close it because then it hands it back to Lightroom...
let's go to Lightroom, give it a sec...
kind of sitting at the top there, was importing it...
it's not working, why is it not working?
Wait there, waiting, 'Preview'...
there you go, I went to Grid view, and back into this view...
I don't know what happened...
normally it just appears, yours might be the same, so I'll leave that in there...
just went to Grid view, and then back into details, and magically appears, cool, huh.
Now that round trip, there's two, there's, yeah, one thing to remember here...
if I leave it like this I can always...
if I finish this, you know, my edit's done, great...
did my last bit of Photoshop, if I now go back into Photoshop...
I can open it up again and work on stuff, change stuff, make edits...
and those edits will appear again in Lightroom...
I'm going to close it down, don't save...
it'll pass it back to Lightroom with no changes...
but if I do make an edit here, if I go in here and I go...
okay, I'm going to change the exposure...
or I'm going to play around with the highlights...
or the-- I'm just going to mess around with it.
So if I do this now, that layered fire in Photoshop is gone...
if I go in here now, and say edit in Photoshop...
there it is, I'm back in Photoshop, and look, it's all smushed down...
so just going to be careful, if you are-- it's kind of a one-way street...
do your final things in Photoshop...
and then back into Lightroom to do any more edits...
but you can't go back and edit it...
what also happens in Lightroom--
I'll close that down, it'll jump back to Lightroom...
is that if I go into Gallery view you'll notice this...
there's a 2, why is there a 2?
It's called a Stack, it's pretty advanced but...
I'll show you what it does, basically, if I go, if I click on the 2...
it shows me that this image actually has two versions of it...
well, it's a stack of two images, groups them together...
there's that original one I brought in, and I can work on that one...
and I've got the second one, because we changed it quite a lot, with Photoshop...
Lightroom's like, "I don't know what you're doing here, I want to protect you...
I want to look after your original," so it's there...
it's still got those lovely edits that I did...
there's non-destructive edits, but using Photoshop is destructive, in this case...
I send it over, kept all the layers, but then I go and edit it...
and it swooshed it all down, so that's one thing to remember...
when you're using Photoshop...
is that if you do edits in Lightroom afterwards...
it will stick them together, but don't worry, go to 'Backup'...
to get out of this, I'm going to close it down...
go to 'Grid' view, and you've got two versions in there...
this is kind of cool, but kind of when you're new it's a bit tricky.
So you can just right click it and say 'Ungroup Stack'...
and just show me the two of them, please, they'll be ungrouped...
you just end up with two versions, up to you, that might be easier at this level...
just have two versions of it...
they're both backed up, and nice.
All right, let's-- I'm going to delete this one...
so I'm going to hit my 'Option \', or 'Alt \' on a PC...
and say, delete you from everywhere...
and I'm going to open this one up...
and I'm going to go through in a bit more detail in Photoshop...
just for the light replace-- the sky replacement, because that's cool...
and I want to show you, because I want to show you throughout this course...
that there are times it's just easier in Photoshop...
and not just easier but only doable in Photoshop...
this is one of those good cases where you need to physically remove things...
not just enhance them, change them, mask them...
you need to actually cut out something, make a montage.
So let's dig into the 'Edit', down to 'Sky Replacement'...
all right, let's go from happy day...
now you'll see they're all kind of broken into, they change it all the time...
you might have a few other different images...
you can add your own by going here, get more skies, import images...
and then let's look at-- I'm just going to click on a few of them...
because they're awesome, oh, I like that one...
that one is probably going to be the one I'm going to use, oh no...
what you'll notice though is, can you see that...
this image is actually reflecting itself in parts of the roof...
and that's what's really cool about it, because without it...
it can get really, like contrasting, you're like, "That doesn't look real."
So what it does is, let's have a look at the one that I like the most...
I'll click up here, and what you'll notice is-- I'm going to zoom in...
I'm going to use the caveman ways just the slow stuff...
because not everyone has Photoshop skills yet...
though I know a guy who's got a course...
Photoshop Essentials and Photoshop Advanced...
even if you are a reasonably experienced in Photoshop...
you should do the Essentials, loads in there.
I'm going to drag a box around, and I'm going to drag a box...
Photoshop does it differently...
use the Hand tool, and what I want to show you is, watch this...
if I turn the preview on and off, can you see, it doesn't just replace the sky...
but it actually affects the image...
tries to cast itself on here...
the more color that's in your foreground, the more it's going to try and...
like blend itself on top of it, it's really cool, makes it really believable.
I'm going to go back to shift back to full screen...
so I'm going to hit 'Command -' a couple of times, or 'Ctrl -' on a PC...
and these are relatively self-explanatory, but we'll go through them.
Shift Edge is, can you see, it kind of blends too much in here...
so you can start playing around with like how much the sky blends in...
with what it considers the foreground...
and you can decide, you can go way over, so it really covers it...
and that's kind of good when it's quite nature, or cloudy, or misty...
but in this case it's quite a hard edge, so I want to keep it reasonably off...
and the Fade Edge, you can keep it really fuzzy, or you can keep it really tight...
in this case I probably want to keep it tight...
so it stops influencing that so much...
I don't know, pretty believable, you can flip it...
where's the flip, there it is there...
depending on like what you want out of your image, I think I liked it...
yeah, I think, oh, don't know...
now it's broken into two parts, sky adjustments and foreground adjustments.
So this is my building...
and what gets influenced...
how the background influences this, which is really cool, and let's do that...
so you can play around with how all the foreground's lit...
does it brighten it up, does it darken it up...
this one here is probably the most interesting...
like how much of the sky influences the foreground...
like crank it up, and it will try to blend in even more...
if you turn it all the way down it'll leave it alone...
and it's not particularly obvious in this one...
but in some cases it can look really contrasting, you're like...
"Oh, it needs to blend a bit"...
and this one, crank it right up...
it's going to change quite a bit of my image to match the background...
Dan talks a lot, I feel like I'm talking a lot in this video...
I've had a lot of caffeine but it's interesting, right,?
I hope it's interesting.
Let's have a look, brightness, pretty self-explanatory, of the sky...
just lightens it...
temperature, do you want to be blue, you can go brightness down, and kind of dark...
brightness up, sunny day, or at least, yellow day., decide what you want to do...
I'm going to go back to normal...
to reset in Photoshop, the kind of generic thing to do...
is hold down the 'Option' key on a Mac, 'Alt' key on a PC...
can you see, it does it to reset...
you can reset it all if you get lost.
Scale, you can scale it up, but it'll end up pixelating...
it depends on the image, originally, that seems to be holding up all right...
but if I get really big, you'll start to see all the pixels in it...
and get a bit yucky looking...
yeah, it's a pretty big image...
scaling it down, you end up seeing the edges here...
so it'll depend on how much the background needs to cover...
so it's quite dependent on the image.
All right, let's close down the sky adjustments, we've talked about this...
you can-- Edge Lighting is just around the edges here, it's edge lightning, Dan...
I'll set it on and off, just to give you a, you know, how it looks...
just how much it affects, just the little wispy edges, it's very cool.
All right, so I love sky replacement in Photoshop, it's cool...
remember, to get back into Lightroom you've got to save it, you've got to close it...
and then, you can see it up here, importing from Photoshop...
depending on your machine, it might take a while to import it...
and up until this beta copy that I'm working with at the moment...
it just instantly changed...
yours will probably instantly change, me, just worked out got to go to Grid view...
and then back into Details view, look how cool that is, very menacing.
Now the before and after, the backslash doesn't work...
because it's actually made two copies, remember, under Grid there's these two...
it's protected your last one...
it's kind of used it as a separate one, we can compare the two...
so have one selected, let's go to 'Compare' view, click on the other one...
we can see our before and after.
So this is a great shot that, when I set your class exercise in the next one...
you can take a screenshot of this using the Compare view...
plus it's good to practice the Compare view...
so that's what we're going to talk about now for Photoshop...
because it fits in with what we're doing...
there's a couple of other parts of the course...
we're actually just better doing in Photoshop...
and not even better, just the only way to do it, is, in Photoshop...
they've had to split these two programs up, to give--
Lightroom is fast, great for organization, and does great photo editing...
but when you get into photo manipulation...
that's when Photoshop needs to join the gang...
and it's terrible for organization...
you can do really good raw image edits...
but it uses Camera Raw instead of Photoshop.
There's just times where Lightroom's great for a photographer, 95% of the time...
and then you need to hand stuff over to Photoshop...
to do things like this, like cutting out the sky...
but we'll do a few more Photoshop things in this course...
have a little look through the contents, and you'll see...
Photoshop appear a few different times...
just when you thought this video was over I have snuck in class project.
Now, I put this kind of the end of this video...
and not like, as its own separate section...
because not everyone's going to have Photoshop, or Photoshop skills...
there is a free trial, if you don't have it and you want to practice...
but this is not required for the course, if you are doing the assignments...
you don't have to do this one, because I don't...
you know, it's not everyone has Photoshop...
but if you are, you do, we're going to, it's-- in a slightly different...
you use your own image but you can't use the remix feature...
why, because in Lightroom...
they don't want you doing too much with other people's edits...
if you right click, so I've remixed this image, it's not clear...
but if I try to do this, can you see...
I can't do a bunch of stuff like in Photoshop...
so I can't use that remix function.
So what you're going to do is use your own image, signature edits or Unsplash...
find a shot with the sky you want to replace...
just something that's got a nice chunk of the sky...
it doesn't have to have a bad sky, just a sky to replace...
send your image over to Photoshop, replace the sky, save and close it...
to see it in Photoshop, sorry, in Lightroom...
and when you're finished you don't have to upload it to the Assignments...
you know, obviously, I don't want your remix link...
but I'd love to see your before and after...
just share it on social media...
remember the Compare view that we did in the last, in this, in this video...
is great for this, to show your before and after...
or just do a screenshot of before and after...
remember, you have to go into the stacks, which is sometimes confusing.
Let's go back to masking...
there it is there, you can even see the little 2 there...
so you can get to it a couple of different ways, Grid view...
where is it, there it is there, you can click this '2' to see the stacks...
you can open up the before and after...
take screenshots and share it with us, what dramatic sky are you going to do...
remember to credit the photographer...
and share it with us on these places, have some fun, and I will see you--
if you get lost, and crying in Photoshop, it's okay...
it's a big expectation for you to go jump out...
and do a whole another bit of software real quick...
so you do find it tricky, you're allowed to skip along...
if you have some school, or you're game...
get in there, start wrestling with Photoshop...
see if you can replace the sky...
and share what you make, all right, next video.
Can you replace the sky in Lightroom?
No. Lightroom can enhance an existing sky, but replacing it with a different image requires Photoshop in this workflow. Right-click your photo, choose Edit in Photoshop, use Edit > Sky Replacement, then save and close the document to bring the edited version back into Lightroom.
Replace Sky in Lightroom Using Photoshop Round Trip
Key takeaways
Know when to enhance a sky in Lightroom and when to hand it over to Photoshop.
Replace a sky and blend its colour and lighting into the foreground.
Understand the layer limitation when returning to Photoshop after further Lightroom edits.
Find your original and edited versions using stacks and Compare View.
Enhancing a sky is not the same as replacing it
A grey sky does not automatically need replacing. Lightroom can select it, adjust the lights and darks, and bring out detail with tools such as Dehaze. Sometimes a supposedly boring sky has quite a bit hiding in it.
But there is a difference between improving what is already there and putting an entirely different sky behind your subject. That second job is photo manipulation, and it is where Photoshop joins the gang.
For this example, I am using a photograph of an old stone building. A basic Lightroom edit gives it a slightly Gothic feel. We could give it cheerful blue skies for the tourist brochure, or go the other way and make it wonderfully menacing. I rather like menacing.
Lightroom is quick, excellent for organisation, and great for everyday photo editing. Photoshop is the companion you call when you need to combine images, cut something out, or build a montage. It is not a replacement for Lightroom’s organisation tools, and its raw editing is handled through Camera Raw. The two applications have different jobs.
1. Send your photograph from Lightroom to Photoshop
You will need Photoshop installed, along with enough familiarity to open a menu, save a document, and close it. You do not need to master the whole application for this.
Open your photograph in Lightroom.
Complete your basic Lightroom adjustments.
Right-click the image and choose Edit in Photoshop.
Wait for the photograph to open in Photoshop.
That is the first half of the round trip. Lightroom hands the image over so Photoshop can do the work Lightroom is not designed to do.
Sending a photo directly from Adobe Lightroom into Photoshop using a quick shortcut.
2. Open Sky Replacement and choose a sky
In Photoshop, choose Edit > Sky Replacement. The dialogue opens with a sky selector and controls for blending the replacement into your photograph.
Open the sky selector and try a few options. A blue sky with white clouds completely changes the mood of the stone building. Dark storm clouds make it feel rather less welcoming. Both are useful experiments, even if you already know which direction you want.
A blue sky gives the same stone building a much brighter mood.
The supplied skies are grouped into collections. Your selection may look different because the available images and organisation can change. You can also use the sky selector’s menu to Get More Skies or Import Images, rather than relying only on the supplied choices.
For my final version, I am choosing a darker sky with a little warm colour in the clouds. It suits the building’s Gothic treatment without turning the whole thing into a sunny holiday snap.
3. Check how the new sky affects the foreground
This is the clever part. Sky Replacement does not simply paste a picture into the empty space above the roof. It also tries to adjust the existing scene so the new sky and foreground belong together.
Look at the roof and stonework as you switch Preview off and on. The foreground’s appearance changes along with the sky. Those lighting and colour adjustments help avoid the obvious mismatch of a dramatic sunset behind a building that still looks as though it was photographed under flat grey daylight.
Zooming into the roof makes the foreground blending easier to inspect.
Use the zoom controls to inspect the boundary, then use the Hand tool to move around the photograph. To zoom back out, press Command + minus on a Mac or Control + minus on a PC.
The strength of the effect depends on the image. On some photographs, the foreground colour change is quite subtle. On others, it makes a huge difference to whether the result feels believable.
4. Refine the boundary between sky and subject
The automatic result is a starting point, not a commandment. Check the roofline, trees, and any fine details where the foreground meets the replacement sky.
Shift Edge
Shift Edge changes where the sky replacement boundary sits relative to the foreground. Move it to control how far the replacement extends into the area Photoshop has identified as the subject.
A softer overlap can work well with mist, clouds, or natural scenery. A hard architectural edge needs more restraint. On this building, I want to keep the roof and stonework clearly defined rather than let the sky creep over them.
Fade Edge
Fade Edge controls how soft that boundary becomes. A larger fade makes the transition fuzzier; a smaller fade keeps it tighter.
For a crisp roofline, keep the transition reasonably tight. The aim is a clean join, not a soft glow that gives the replacement away.
Flip
Flip reverses the replacement sky horizontally. Try both orientations and decide which arrangement works better with the photograph. Sometimes shifting the brighter clouds to the other side makes the composition feel much more convincing.
5. Adjust the sky’s brightness, temperature, and scale
The dialogue separates adjustments to the sky from adjustments to the foreground. Start by getting the replacement sky itself looking right.
Brightness: Lighten or darken the sky. A gloomy scene may need a darker replacement rather than bright clouds competing with the building.
Temperature: Push the sky towards cooler blue tones or warmer yellow tones. This changes the mood quickly, so try it without assuming that warmer is always better.
Scale: Enlarge or reduce the replacement sky to change the size and placement of its features.
Scale has practical limits. Enlarge a sky too much and you may start to see pixels, depending on the resolution of the source image. Reduce it too far and its edges can become visible because it no longer covers the required area.
If you have enthusiastically dragged everything around and lost your starting point, hold Option on a Mac or Alt on a PC to reveal the dialogue’s Reset option. A useful little escape hatch.
6. Match the foreground lighting and colour
Now turn your attention to the building, trees, and other parts of the original photograph. These controls determine how much the new sky influences them.
Lighting Adjustment: Adjust how the foreground is lit, helping it appear brighter or darker alongside the new sky.
Colour Adjustment: Control how strongly the replacement sky’s colour influences the foreground. Reduce it to leave the original foreground colour more alone, or increase it to help the two parts blend.
Edge Lighting: Refine the lighting around the boundary, including fine or wispy details where the foreground meets the sky.
Try a stronger setting, then a weaker one, and compare them. A foreground that barely changes can look disconnected from a colourful replacement sky. Too much influence can change more of the photograph than you intended.
Keep toggling Preview. Look at the complete scene as well as the close-up details. A tidy roofline is useful, but the whole photograph still needs to feel like one image.
7. Save and return to Lightroom
When you are happy, click OK. Photoshop creates the layers used for the replacement and its associated adjustments.
Save the Photoshop document.
Close the document.
Return to Lightroom and allow the edited image to import.
Save and close is the routine to remember for this round trip. Give Lightroom a moment, particularly if your machine takes a little time to process the file.
If the original still appears and nothing seems to have changed, switch to Grid View, then return to Detail View. I encountered this refresh issue in a beta version; switching views made the edited version appear. It may update immediately in your version.
Be careful with further Lightroom edits and Photoshop layers
There is one important wrinkle in this workflow. After returning from Photoshop, reopening the edited image in Photoshop can retain the layers, allowing you to change the replacement and other Photoshop work.
However, in the workflow demonstrated here, making additional Lightroom adjustments, such as changing Exposure or Highlights, and then choosing Edit in Photoshop again produces a flattened rendition. Instead of separate sky replacement layers, the new document contains the combined result.
Do not assume that a new Photoshop round trip will always reopen the editable layered version. Lightroom adjustments do not themselves mean the original photograph has been erased, but the version sent back to Photoshop may no longer offer the same layer-by-layer control.
The simplest working order is:
Make your basic adjustments in Lightroom.
Complete the sky replacement and other compositing work in Photoshop.
Save and close.
Apply any finishing adjustments in Lightroom, understanding the limitation if you send that adjusted result back again.
Find the original and edited image in a stack
Back in Lightroom, you may see a small 2 on the image thumbnail. That means the photographs are grouped in a stack.
Click the number to reveal the two images: the original with its existing Lightroom edits, and the Photoshop-edited version. Lightroom keeps them together rather than replacing the original with your new composite.
If stacks feel confusing, right-click and choose Ungroup Stack. Confirm if prompted, and the two versions will appear separately in the grid. Sometimes having both photographs plainly visible is much easier when you are starting out.
You do not need to delete either version to complete the process. Keeping the original makes it easy to compare the result or begin again.
Compare the before and after
The usual backslash before-and-after shortcut is not the right comparison here because the original and the Photoshop result are separate images.
Reveal both images in the stack, or ungroup them.
Select one version.
Open Compare View.
Select the other version to place them side by side.
Compare View shows how the new sky changes both the atmosphere and the foreground.
This gives you a useful check on the whole edit. You can assess the change in mood, the sky boundary, and how much the building has been affected. It is also a handy way to capture a before-and-after image to share.
Try it yourself: an optional sky replacement exercise
Choose a photograph with a decent chunk of visible sky. The existing sky does not have to be bad. You just need enough of it to make the replacement worth experimenting with.
Use your own photograph, or find an image through Signature Edits or Unsplash. For this exercise, avoid Lightroom’s Remix feature: the remix example has restrictions that prevent using Edit in Photoshop.
Import your chosen photograph into Lightroom and make a basic edit.
Send it to Photoshop using Edit in Photoshop.
Replace the sky and refine the edges, colour, and lighting.
Save and close the document.
Return to Lightroom and compare the original with the replacement.
Share a before-and-after image if you like, crediting the photographer when using someone else’s photograph.
This is optional practice, not a test of whether you can suddenly operate a whole second application. If you do not have Photoshop, a trial may be an option. If it all feels a bit much, you are allowed to leave it for later.
Otherwise, have a play. Try cheerful clouds, try something dramatic, and see which sky actually suits the photograph. The exciting part is not just replacing the sky. It is making the rest of the scene believe it belongs there.
Key terms
Round trip
Sending a photograph from Lightroom to Photoshop for editing, then returning the saved result to Lightroom.
Sky replacement
Combining a photograph with a different sky image, rather than simply adjusting the sky already present.
Foreground adjustments
Lighting and colour changes that help the original subject match the replacement sky.
Layers and flattening
Layers keep parts of a Photoshop edit separate. Flattening combines the visible result, removing that separate control in the flattened rendition.
Stack
A Lightroom grouping that keeps related photographs, such as an original and a Photoshop-edited version, together.
Compare View
A Lightroom view for examining two separate photographs side by side.
FAQs
Can Lightroom improve a sky without Photoshop?
Yes. Lightroom can select and enhance the existing sky using tonal adjustments and tools such as Dehaze. Photoshop is needed for the replacement workflow described here, where a different sky image is added.
Can I use my own sky in Photoshop?
Yes. Open the sky selector in Sky Replacement and use its import option to add your own image. Check the scale so it covers the sky area without excessive enlargement.
Why has my edited image not appeared in Lightroom?
Make sure you saved and closed the Photoshop document, then allow time for Lightroom to import it. If the display has not refreshed, try switching to Grid View and back to Detail View.
Why do I have two versions of my photograph?
Lightroom retains the original and adds the Photoshop-edited version. They may be grouped into a stack, indicated by a small number on the thumbnail. Open the stack or use Ungroup Stack to access both.
Written by Daniel Walter Scott — Founder of Bring Your Own Laptop & Chief Instructor
