How to replace sky using Photoshop

In this step-by-step Photoshop tutorial you will learn how to replace an empty sky with a nice blue sky with fluffy clouds, neat trick indeed.

Click here to download picture of a sky and open it in Photoshop.

You can use your own picture if you wish so.

Click here to download and save picture of a structure where you will replace the sky.

In the menu click File and choose Place... and open picture of a structure, or any picture you want to replace the sky on.

Adjust the size of the picture to a picture of sky underneath.

In my case both pictures are the same dimensions, so no need to adjust them.

Press Enter when done.

In the menu click Layer, Rasterize and choose Layer.

Press Ctrl + J, to duplicate the layer.

Hide the upper layer by clicking the little eye button (see picture).

Choose the layer bellow.

Choose the Lasso Tool.

Select the sky and go a bit inside of the structure edge like I did (see picture).

In the menu click Select and Inverse.

Click Add layer mask button.

And the new sky appears.

The bottom layer becomes visible.

Make the upper layer visible again.

In the menu click Layer, Layer Style and choose Blending Options....

In the Blending Options choose Blue as Blend If option.

Drag the This Layer slider to the left (see picture).

It's starting to look much better now, the objects that were covered are now visible again.

Now hold the Alt key and click the slider to split it, then drag the second half of the slider to the right (see picture).

Play with the both halves of the slider to achieve the optimal results.

And that's it, pretty awesome technique for a quick replacement, don't you think?