Changing back ground colour-How??

[fairy bombs]

Hello

I recently took some images of birds in the sky,the bird turned out well but the sky turned out awful-blown out white.

Its been suggested this can be fixed-but how is it done?? I only have CS 5 and canon DDP,I thought CS 5 was an advanced
PP tool,but when I get pointers fro others,and go to use them,there appear to be not many tools the same in CS5

Might look at buying a better PP tool,any suggestions?Really struggling with all this PP bit.

[mikew09]

Hi fairy bombs, I would surprised if this could not be done effectively PS CS5. I have trialed it but not cashed up enough to purchase it and it seemed to have very powerful features. I am sure one of the togs on the site can give you a process to do this in CS5.

Have you tried to youtude this, I have found an endless supply of excellent tutorials for PSE and Lightroom3.

[ricktas]

what do you want to do?

Place a whole new sky photo as the background?
'Fix' the current sky (probably really difficult if it is as blown out as you say)?

The easiest way would be to get a new sky shot and use that. It involves dropping the new sky in as a new layer, then making selections of the bird(s) so that only the birds remain from the old sky, and using layers and masks to make the birds appear on the new background sky.

CS5 is the pinnacle of editing suites, but it is not a one-click fix all piece of software, in fact it is complex and powerful and needs serious time learning how to use it. If you bought it expecting it to be a simple 'click here to fix the sky' you are going to be frustrated.

[WhoDo]

CS5 is too complicated for many folk, so it's not surprising you are having trouble with this. There are several methods to achieve the same result but none of them as simple as pressing a button AFAIK.

Create a new adjustment layer and set it to the background colour you want. Then use a layer mask to select the grey background on your original and erase/paint through to to your original layer from the new background to reveal the bird against that. It's fiddly work, particularly at the edges, but it does achieve the result. Someone who knows CS5 better than me might have an easier solution.

Personally I learned this stuff in GIMP (free but powerful) but now spend most of my processing time in Photoshop Lightroom 3. It's much easier and more intuitive to work with than the full Photoshop CS5, and makes everything so much easier and quicker it isn't funny. Hope that helps.:th:

Edit: Rick types quicker than me, too! :D

[Kym]

Photoshop CS5 has the most features of any image editor.
It does require significant effort to learn to get the most out of it.
It is bloated and definitely not intuitive, but is EXTREMELY powerful

[fairy bombs]

Thanks all for help.

Will look into it,might be easier just to take another photo of the bird.

Heard a bit about lightroom.

Is there a trail version of it? How much does it cost? Noticed a fair number of birders seem to use it here.

[WhoDo]

Lightroom 3.5 has a free download to trial and my copy cost me $125 online in mid-November.

[Blueywa]

Lightroom 3 is a relatively easy PP to use and can be used for such things as 'tethered shooting'.
Maybe even consider Photoshop Elements 9 which isnt as complex or expensive as CS5.
Free trials are available for both online.

[Cage]

I was looking for answers for the same problem with out a lot of joy.

I've just ordered 'Photoshop CS3 for Dummies' to help me work my way through using Layers. I had a 'Dummies' for a computer program years ago and it was really helpful.

It cost me about $20 so it was a lot cheaper than a new software program. I should get it this week so I'll let you know if it is any good. I think I remember seeing the CS5 version for around $35.

[farmmax]

Depending on how blown out the sky is, there may be a reasonably simple fix. Would you be able to upload the photo so we can have a look at it?

[fess67]

Ok, at the risk of being blown out of the wter and possibly the forum.......For Real??? you have CS5 and you cannot find out how to replace the sky?

Go to Google.com, type in "cs5 replace sky" and you will find more tutorials and videos than you can imagine!!

The internet is free, use it!

Why not post the shot in question and let us have a go at it? If it is a simple sky replacement then we can talk you through that very easily. If there are lots of twigs and leaves in the way...well that is also pretty easy, just needs a bit more care.

Again, at the risk of seeming cold, there is so much stuff available on the web for this, go look it up.