Elements 2 Halo

Rod Boughton

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Rod
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Hi everyone,

Hoping someone can help me out here, i use Lightroom 3 for most of my processing and due to our changeable weather recently, i thought i would change the skies in some of my photos, i use Elements 2 for changing skies and ive done this many times without too much trouble, but recently i have been getting a halo around the edges on some photos, i have attached one below so you can see what i mean. Is there something i am doing wrong, or is there something in the process that i am missing out. Thanks in advance for your expert advice.

be067aa8j0.jpg
 
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Thats certainly something you're doing. By change the skies do you mean you've used an adjustment brush on it or something else?
 
You are probably pushing it a bit too far and the edges are not smooth enough for the automatic mask tool to cope.

Try doing multiple edits - do a mild one immediately around the sky line, then do a new one increasing it slightly away from the skyline then maybe a third to get the result you want slightly in from that
 
Sorry i should have said how i do it. I use the magic wand tool to select all the sky area that i want to replace, then with my sky photo i use the marquee tool to select the whole sky then i copy it and then use paste into command to put it into the original photo. Sorry Christine i don't understand what you are suggesting, how would i do that?
 
Sorry i should have said how i do it. I use the magic wand tool to select all the sky area that i want to replace, then with my sky photo i use the marquee tool to select the whole sky then i copy it and then use paste into command to put it into the original photo. Sorry Christine i don't understand what you are suggesting, how would i do that?

Your initial post suggested LR3 was causing the issues, but this reply suggests a version of photoshop. At a guess you need to apply some sort of feathering to your selection
 
Sorry my mistake, (what an idiot :amstupid:) Thats because i use Lightroom most of the time!! I actually use Photoshop Elements 2 for changing skies :bonk: Apologies (better change the title now)
 
OK Theres a few things here I don't use elements so some of these commands may not be available..they will all be in photoshop.

Expand your selection,
select>modify>Expand> maybe a couple of pixels more if your image is high res. That should take care of your halo's

Couple of tips..
Mask the sky rather than delete, that way you can always go back and change

Try to ensure the sky is similar to your picture e.g. a sunny sky looks out of place if the shot was on a cloudy day

be067aa8j0.jpg


No halo's but an over cast sky would suit it better (Sorry didn't mess around doing the windows)

Also a sky gets lighter the lower you go: like this

-5copy.jpg


Try to get skies that go to the horizon and try and match the horizon to your image...yours has clouds at ground level.

Be careful to the left and right of the building you can see where you have selected, this can take a bit of careful close in work to get right.

If you can try to blend a sky in, there should be some tutorials about, it can be a lot easier to get a good result.
 
Thanks everyone for your help, and in particular Shaun for taking the time to show me in more detail, i have tried again and got much better results and have taken on board all your comments about making sure the sky suits the picture. I have also managed to find quite a good tutorial about blending using layers which i will try and get my head around, (i find layers quite confusing). Thanks once again.
 
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