Lightroom Blown Out Sky Fix! (EASY!)

Saving Blown Out Sky And Clouds In Lightroom

Today we’re looking at the easy way to fix a blown out sky in Lightroom. We’ve all taken photos where the light was less than ideal. Sometimes to prevent your portraits from turning into silhouettes, the sky in our photos winds up blown out and white. Luckyily, saving blown out skies is one of the things that Lightroom has some awesome tools for. Sky editing can be one of the trickiest parts of editing a photo. There are several options how to fix a blown out sky in a photo – Sky replacement is something a lot of photographers do when there is no detail left in the photo, but as of yet you can’t replace the sky in Lightroom without taking your image over to photoshop. So how do you fix a bright sky or edit the skyline to enhance the colors quickly and easily? Using the automask feature we can easily recover highlights and do all sorts of sky effects to enhance our photo. Here’s how you do it.

Lightroom Blown Out Sky Fix Tutorial Video

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[AUTO GENERATED]
hey guys Ryan here at signature edits
00:02
and today I’m going to show you how to
00:04
fix a blown out sky and add sky effects
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inside of Lightroom
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[Music]
00:14
alright so sky editing can be one of the
00:17
trickiest parts of editing a photo
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there’s so many options how you can fix
00:21
a blown out sky in Lightroom the sky
00:24
replacement is something a lot of
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photographers do when there’s just no
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detail left in the photo but as of yet
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you can’t actually replace this guy in
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Lightroom without taking your image over
00:33
to Photoshop so how do you fix a bright
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sky or fix and edit the skyline to
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enhance the colors quickly and easily
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that’s a question that we’re gonna look
00:42
at today using the auto mask feature we
00:44
can easily recover highlights and do all
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sorts of sky effects to enhance our
00:48
photos here’s how you do it first things
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first we’re going to make a new
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adjustment brush we’re going to set the
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size all the way to max our feather down
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minimally and our flow to 100 and then
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we’re going to check this little Auto
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mask box what that’s going to do is
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allow Lightroom to automatically create
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your masks for you and save a ton of
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time especially if you’ve got some
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complicated textures and details that
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you need to mask out like these trees
01:14
here for instance then we’re going to
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zoom out in our photos so that our mask
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brush adjustment brush can cover the
01:20
entire photo the reason for this is
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we’re now going to make a sample of a
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particular part of the sky and Lightroom
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using that one sample we’ll click it
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once on the photo is going to
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automatically grab all of the color
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information and brightness information
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that looks like it’s related to that one
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little sample now I can actually grab
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this and move it around to different
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parts of the image and Lightroom will
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again automatically find the different
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areas of the image that again match up
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with this point so if I click again in a
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different area now it’s going to sample
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from both the colors like this and the
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colors down in here so I’m just going to
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do that a couple of times and click on
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my sky here like that and as you can see
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it’s automatically filling in and
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selecting the areas that I’m clicking
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now I click too far and it accidentally
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masked further than I needed it to so
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I’m just going to hit command set a
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couple of times to undo that
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and then the last thing I’m going to do
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is go to my secondary brush I’m going to
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set the flow up to 100 and this is a
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smaller brush I’m going to then take it
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and just go over the parts of this guy
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that are easy for me to paint on quickly
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so basically what you’re doing is you’re
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using Lightroom’s Auto mask feature to
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get these fine details here so that you
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don’t have to do it personally and then
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afterwards go over and just make sure
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that it hasn’t missed any tiny little
02:40
spots perfect so now that I’ve done that
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I’m going to hold alt and erase and
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really quickly just erase down in here
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because it looks like lightroom has
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automatically selected some of this road
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that doesn’t need to be selected I’m
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going to press o and that’s going to get
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rid of this red overlay okay now what I
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can do is just lower my exposure here
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and we’ll darken this guy just like that
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now if you want to add a little bit more
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blue to this guy all you have to do is
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take your temperature control and just
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shift it towards blue and that’s a
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little far we’re going to leave it
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somewhere around here and now I’m going
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to brighten the whole image up make this
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maybe even a little bit darker up my
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clarity I don’t need to have any
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sharpness on there a little bit of D
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haze perhaps and get rid of the
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saturation and just like that I have
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gone from here to here all right let’s
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keep going this photo here I love the
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vibes but it’s a little washed out
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looking for me so I’m going to do the
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same thing again grabbing my adjustment
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brush I’m going to switch to adjustment
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brush a make sure that my flow is at a
03:51
hundred sizes is one hundred in my auto
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mask is on then I’m going to sample a
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portion of the image here by clicking in
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press o to see where Lightroom is
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masking and sure enough in one click it
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is pretty much covered everything I’m
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just going to hit this little bit of sky
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and it looks like Lightroom’s not loving
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me for that so we’re going to just stick
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there press o again and same trick I can
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you know let’s just reset all these
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settings I can add a little bit of blue
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by just taking the color balance down
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this way
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maybe upping my saturation taking down
04:23
my exposure a little bit
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and just like that I’ve gone fire to
04:29
here okay let’s keep going so another
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area of sky replacement that can be
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tricky is getting details back in clouds
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so before you actually do this
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adjustment brush technique the first
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thing you need to check is whether or
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not your image has any detail left
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anyways because if this in camera if
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this photo had actually blown out these
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whites and the clouds there would be no
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detail left to rescue in the first place
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so an easy trick is you just take your
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exposure down and see if you were just
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exposing for the clouds oK we’ve got a
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little bit of texture in there but not a
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ton so obviously I’m not worrying about
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how the rest of the image looks right
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now just the clouds so I could
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definitely bring some out but we’re
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gonna be watching there’s definitely
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some purple and some weird noise coming
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up in here so we’re going to do this now
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I’m going to reset and undo those
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changes and I’m going to do the same
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thing as our last couple of images go to
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adjustment brush a and just click that
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sky press o to see my mask and that’s
05:31
looking pretty good and then hold alt
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I’m going to erase off of the hill here
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great press o again and then I can just
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lower my exposure like that maybe add
05:44
some contrast take the blacks down and
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one thing you can do if you’re having
05:48
issues with pulling the sky back too
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much and it’s making those weird
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splotchy purpley colors all you have to
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do is just take your noise and turn that
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up and my clarity I can turn that down
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because there’s really not a whole lot
05:59
going on in here
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I can take my sharpness down the two and
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that’ll help blend things together and
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you can see that in this image there’s
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still some weird kind of speckles going
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on here so I can actually just make that
06:13
a little bit less of a drastic change
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zoom back out here’s before and here’s
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after so I hope you can see how easy and
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fast this is it lets you grep so I hope
06:27
you can see how easy and fast it is to
06:28
replace the details in the sky by
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pulling the exposure back down just
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making yourself a nice auto
06:38
so I hope you so obviously this is a
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super easy quick way to mask out your
06:45
sky and get your details back without
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moving into Photoshop and just
06:49
recovering the highlights from our sky
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ever so easily and fast again if you’re
06:55
having issues with weird splotches going
06:56
on you can just lower your sharpness
06:58
turn your denoising on a little bit
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ditch the saturation or just take your
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effect back so it’s a little more subtle
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there’s going to be a limit to how much
07:10
detail you can actually rescue in your
07:12
image it all depends on the raw file so
07:13
before you try and push things too far
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you can always check and just say okay
07:17
if I take this down is there still color
07:19
in the clouds yes there is okay I’m
07:21
gonna go ahead and edit this as I would
07:23
and if not then you’re going to have to
07:25
look at a technique like replacing this
07:27
guy inside of Photoshop so we’ll just do
07:30
a couple more here now in this case this
07:36
image isn’t working very well and why is
07:38
that
07:38
well it’s because if we actually take a
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look at our image our colors are not
07:43
super distinct yes this guy is much
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brighter than the rest of the image
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however it’s not a whole lot different
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in color and exposure on some of these
07:51
reflections on the buildings etc so one
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thing that we can try is turning our
07:56
range mask on so I’m going to click in
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here as I was before
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just on the different areas of this
08:02
sunset and once I’ve done that I’m going
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to take my range mask turn it on to
08:08
luminance so what that’s going to do is
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it’s going to filter out any darker
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areas based on the setting that I give
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it so I’m going to slide my shadows up
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and you can see that slowly but surely
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Lightroom is omitting the darker areas
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of the image from this mask just like
08:33
that so this is without the range mask
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and this is with it on so then I can
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proceed as normal press o again to see
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what I’m doing
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take my exposure down a little bit and
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we’ll just be darkening the road here
08:49
this sunset now if you want to get some
08:54
really great popping colors take your
08:56
clarity up your contrast up a little bit
08:58
just exaggerate the highlights and
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shadows ever so slightly a little bit of
09:02
saturation a little bit of sharpness and
09:05
a little bit of noise is going to help
09:07
as you’re pulling the details back great
09:14
let’s keep going so this next image is a
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fantastic example of where this
09:19
technique can save you a ton of time
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we’ve got a very complicated mountain
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right here which would be so hard for me
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to manually go in there and draw my mask
09:29
in by myself however if i zoom back out
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using our technique take this adjustment
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brush size one hundred feather all the
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way down flow all the way up Auto mask
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and then I click here in the sky
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BAM one click two clicks three clicks
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you can kind of paint on there and
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eventually Lightroom will clue in now
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that is the only part about using an
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auto mask function sometimes it’s not
09:59
going to do exactly what you want it to
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do but that’s fine we can always try our
10:03
range mask trick again take our
10:05
luminance slider slide that up and you
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can see how now it’s only affecting the
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very white portions of the image the
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parts that are very bright indeed great
10:15
so now I’m going to pull that back
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and just like that we’ve got a whole lot
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of detail in the sky that otherwise
10:25
would have been lost I can make this guy
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more blue by lowering that white balance
10:29
a little bit turn my saturation up and
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even a little bit of D haze maybe
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perfect before and here’s after a big
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difference a same thing goes for this
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image obviously our foreground here is
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super super dark because whoever took
10:50
this photo was exposing for the sky
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generally that’s the best possible rule
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because you do not want to lose the
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highlights in the sky if that word gone
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when I pulled it down if it just stayed
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white there’s nothing I can do but
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because I can see that all of the sky
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detail is still there it’s okay all I
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have to do is it grab my little brush
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press o here click click click and now
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I’m going to switch to my second brush
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just to go over these areas once more
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press o again pull my exposure back and
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just like that we have our beautiful sky
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once more I’m not incredible now
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obviously you’re going to want to edit
11:33
the rest of the image too so that things
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don’t look quite so weird and unnatural
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but in about 30 seconds I was able to do
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something that manually would have been
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next to impossible or taking me a long
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time here is before and here is after
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alright two more and we’re done this
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photo was taken at Zion National Park
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we’re just going to delete everything
11:54
here all we have to do to get this guy
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back is first we’re going to check if
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there is detail yes and no this is a
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good example of what happens when you
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over expose your photo and there’s just
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nothing you can do because down here
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where the Sun is setting you can clearly
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see there’s some white areas that no
12:09
matter how far down I take my slider
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they’re going to stay white that’s
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because they were blown out in the
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actual camera there’s nothing we can do
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to get them back but the rest of this
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image we still have a shot at getting
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some detail back so what I’m going to do
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is the same as the other images zoom out
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got my large brush press o to see what
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it’s doing
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perfect and you can see there’s a lot of
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detail around this tree that otherwise
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if I were trying to paint this manually
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it would be a hopeless process but
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because we’re using the auto brush in
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Lightroom we’re getting pretty good
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results very very fast so now go to my
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secondary brush and I’m very lightly
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just going to brush on top of these
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trees throw my flow down and that’s
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going to minimize the effects of those
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weird kind of white splotches and that
13:04
can be a good technique to see here on
13:05
the mountain where we’ve got this kind
13:06
of weird line going on by painting on
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top of it just very lightly we can make
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it a little bit less extreme
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okay so let’s zoom out press o again
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take our exposure down not that far
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Lightroom is not playing very nice with
13:34
me right now it’s kind of stalling so
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it’s hard for me to tell what it
13:36
actually looks like great so again
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here’s before completely white and after
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in this case we’re not going to get as
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much detail back simply because it was
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gone
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we never captured it in camera so it’s
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too late now obviously the work that I
13:50
did to make this little transition a
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little more subtle actually wound up
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making everything look weird so I have
13:56
to go through and probably redo that
13:59
again the easiest way to do that is with
14:02
our auto brush just click on that area
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perfect okay one more and we’re done
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this is an example again of just
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maximizing dynamic range without making
14:16
it look weird this portion of the ferry
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is clearly a lot darker than the sky and
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that’s fine but if I want to brighten it
14:23
up and get more detail out of the sky
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all I have to do zoom out click on that
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sky
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and you can see that it’s not working
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exceptionally well in this particular
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image why is that well sometimes the
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colors are just too close together we’ve
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got blue sky blue water and all of that
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is reflecting blue light onto this now
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blue building and so to do this we’re
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going to have to be a little bit more
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manual a little bit less automatic we’re
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going to select all the water in the sky
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here then after that we’re going to go
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over onto our erase or actually will go
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down to our range mask use that take our
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range all the way up and now we’ve just
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selected this guy awesome so we’ll take
15:16
that exposure down contrast way up add
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some blue get that really blue sky in
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the Blue Mountains in the back and take
15:30
our blocks down perfect so we’ve gone
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from here to here now we can take the
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rest of the image a little bit more
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bright without losing any of the detail
15:45
in this guy so that is how you edit the
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sky in lightroom getting your details
15:53
back without having to replace this guy
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in Photoshop I hope this was helpful for
15:57
you if it was please leave me a comment
15:59
let me know I want to hear it
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make sure to hit that like button and
16:01
subscribe for more great content I will
16:04
see you in the next one
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[Music]
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Fix Blown Out Sky In Lightroom Step 1 – Check to see if there is detail left.

Before we go to the trouble of trying to pull the detail back out of blown out white skies and clouds, its important to first check whether there even IS any detail there. You can fix a blown out sky in Lightroom only if the original photo has enough color information saved to rescue. If you shot in RAW, odds are good you’ve got some detail available. If you shot in jpg, there might not be anything you can do to fix the blown out sky other than heading into photoshop for a sky replacement.

To check if there is still detail in your photo, just grab your exposure slider and pull it WAY down. If the sky starts to show clouds / color, great news! You can recover the blown out sky in Lightroom. If the sky stays white / grey doesn’t seem to have any color or texture, or just looks BAD, you might be better off replacing the sky in photoshop.

Once our subjects are properly exposed, the sky is VERY washed out in our photo.

Pulling back the exposure reveals that the detail has not been lost in the sky!

Once you know whether you can save the sky in your photo, move to the next step.

Blown Out Sky Fix Lightroom Step 2 – Create An Adjustment Layer

Using the adjustment brush tool is the easiest way to mask out the sky. In order to lower the exposure and rescue detail from a blown out sky we’re going to need to edit it separately from the rest of your image. You COULD just draw the mask on manually, but this is a LOT of work and might even be impossible if your photo has a lot of detailed edges / texture. The best method is going to using the auto mask feature of the adjustment brush, and getting Lightroom to automatically mask out the sky for you. Set the size of the brush all the way up, and then zoom out the view of your photo so that you can cover the entire image with a single click.

Lightroom Blown Out Sky Fix Step 3 – Mask Out The Sky

Once you’ve created your adjustment brush and zoomed out, click on the area of the image you want to mask out (The sky). Because your brush is covering the entire photo, Lightroom will automatically mask out everything with a similar brightness + color range within the entire image. Sometimes one click is all it takes, other times you might have to click a couple different sample spots of sky until everything is selected the way you want.

Blown Out Sky Fix Lightroom Step 4 – Refine Your Mask

Now that Lightroom has done the hard work for you, you can finesse your mask in any instances Lightroom has selected something you don’t want. I like to grab my adjustment brush “B” and use it as a smaller double checking brush, going over the non detailed portions of the mask a second time for good measure in case the auto mask missed any pixels. Then I hold down alt on my keyboard to erase anything from the mask that shouldn’t be there.

Lightroom Blown Out Sky Fix Step 5 – Recover + Enhance With Your Chosen Effects!

The hard part is over. Once your mask is settled, you can adjust settings as necessary. For blown out highlights take the exposure down until things look ideal. For increased color try adding contrast, dehaze or saturation. For blue sky effect in Lightroom a great trick is to take the adjustment layer white balance down a little towards blue – This will add blue to the sky.

Blown Out Sky Fix Lightroom Step 6 – Repeat!

By now you know how easy it is to enhance and fix blown out sky in Lightroom. Once you get the hang of it, it takes no time at all. Now you can fix the sky on any image in Lightroom!

For a more thorough tutorial, make sure to watch our Easy Blown Out Sky Fix Lightroom Tutorial above!

And for an IN DEPTH look at auto mask in Lightroom, watch our Lightroom auto mask tutorial now!