How To Clean Up a Sky Mask?

[kitjv]

Operating System

1. macOS 15 Sequoia

Sorry if I am asking a redundant question, but a answer seems to be elusive (at least to me). I am referring to creating a sky mask on a photo with tree branches & leaves in the foreground. At times the sky mask fails to detect the small portions of sky between the branches & leaves. I cannot seem to find a reliable way to add those small portions of sky to the mask. It seems like all of the "solutions" posted online do not work effectively. I would appreciate your thoughts on how to resolve this. Thank you so much.

 

[johnbeardy]

Why add them? Might it not look more natural if there is hardly any of the adjustment in those areas?

There is a method where you duplicate the sky mask component, then set it to Invert and Subtract. This can improve matters.

But I find that my favourite and most useful sky preset adds a sky component, and also a linear which is set to Subtract. I then move the linear for the specific image, maybe adding another or a radial. The idea is to apply a darkening to the sky, but graduate it so any of your “small portions” are not obvious. The graduated darkening is, to my eye, more natural and FWIW it’s a method very similar to Ansel Adams’s burning in of skies.

You can also try adding to the sky, but in another mask, and then using the Intersect, Luminance to target bright patches and exclude leaves and branches.

 

[kitjv]

Why add them? Might it not look more natural if there is hardly any of the adjustment in those areas?

There is a method where you duplicate the sky mask component, then set it to Invert and Subtract. This can improve matters.

But I find that my favourite and most useful sky preset adds a sky component, and also a linear which is set to Subtract. I then move the linear for the specific image, maybe adding another or a radial. The idea is to apply a darkening to the sky, but graduate it so any of your “small portions” are not obvious. The graduated darkening is, to my eye, more natural and FWIW it’s a method very similar to Ansel Adams’s burning in of skies.

You can also try adding to the sky, but in another mask, and then using the Intersect, Luminance to target bright patches and exclude leaves and branches.

Thank you, John. In part, I think that I just need to spend some time reasoning through the various tools in the masking panel; namely, adding/subtracting & intersecting other masking tools to feel more comfortable. Again, thank you.

 

[johnbeardy]

See if you can find a copy of Adams’s The Print or his Examples 40 photographs - don’t worry if not - and forget they were written for b&w darkroom printing because the principles are what matters and may help free you from any mechanical focus on selecting those “small portions”. He would say how a graduated darker sky pushes the viewer’s attention down into the body + the most important area of the image that you are trying to emphasise to the viewer. It also looks more natural too, and right now I look out of the window and see a horizon lighter than the gloomy November skies. Once you’re guided by more creative concerns, the subtracting and intersecting will make more sense.

 

[GGR001]

Another Youtube recommendation, that I found to help for this.

This video from Glyn Davis shows a technique that you might be able to use for Trees and the Sky instead of Hair.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KWUv98zPFNQ

Basically
- Select the Color Range of the Sky near the trees
- Use Intersect and a Brush and paint in the area of the mask near the trees
- Then add the Sky mask

Another one that covers this technique. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_6JBfdKD5e4

Good Luck

 

[Conrad Chavez]

I use that “intersect the Sky mask with another Sky mask” method sometimes. One aspect of the default Sky mask is that it can intentionally create “spill” into the non-sky area. I think this is to help unify the sky edits with the subjects it reflects off of in real life. But sometimes I want a more precise edge. I hadn’t used the new Landscape masks much yet, but this week I stumbled across the fact that if you invert a Landscape mask that doesn’t include the sky, you get a different sky mask with a harder edge, as shown in the demo below. A harder mask edge was what I was after for a specific set of pictures, and I found this “alternate sky mask” more useful for that than the typical Sky mask.

I don’t know if this is going to help fill in the areas that are getting missed by your sky mask, but this kind of “alternate sky mask” might be part of another approach to try to solve that, whether on its own or blended with other mask components.