Skies in Lightroom

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Just started using lightroom after getting some advice from the good people on this forum. So far so good but obviously still on a learning curve.

One thing I could do with some tips on is in dealing with skies. In Photoshop I'd generally make a selection, and use the curves and levels to make skies 'pop'. There doesn't appear to be an easy way to do this in LR in particular when the horizon is broken by buildings, mountains etc. I've tried the Grad tool which darkens the tops of the objects so I've tried using the brush tool and, for example, reducing exposure and increasing clarity to bring back a washed out sky.

Seems a bit like hard work but I guess I'll get used to it. The other option is to export to PS of course....

So .....as a LR novice I'd appreciate any tips please in terms of what you do to make great skies.Am I missing something obvious? All advice gratefully received.

Thank you !
 
For me, select grad, create the gradient I need then drop exposure to required level, add some contrast, add some clarity, boost shadows to improve anything it darkened in the process (mountain range perhaps) and adjust hue if required then save this as a preset called "Darken Skies"

Alternatively, use this same preset on an adjustment brush, enable "Auto mask" and "Show mask overlay" and paint the sky red, then turn of the select view and tweak to suit, pretty much the same as photoshop but with a brush
 
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Depending on what type of images you're taking, using a tripod, and taking two exposures... one metered for the sky, and one metered for the foreground... and merging them together in Photoshop with a suitable layer blend, or layer masking is still probably the best way to deal with excessive contrast in landscapes.


Of course... shooting when the light is in your favour is the ultimate ideal :) Get used to recognising when the contrast is just too high and you therefore know the skies will just be a featureless white space... and then simply don't press the shutter :)

If you're on holiday, or don't have a second chance.. then two exposures merged is by far and away the best, as you're not recovering highlight and shadow detail excessively. Recovering excessive highlight or shadow detail destroys quality.

If it's impossible to use a tripod, then Stu's advice above is pretty much on it.
 
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Lightroom plays nice with photoshop, so if you prefer to do you skies in photoshop, use photoshop. Just right click edit in photoshop then when your done hit save and your picture will automagically be in lightroom

I usually prefer to do this as a copy with my lightroom setting..give you two pics the before and after that way (if your really OCD you can stack them on top of each other in the filmstrip view)
 
Most of the time using the Grad tool with a -20 or -30 cut on the Highlights slider works well enough for me. A little nudge with the Clarity slider (+5 to 10) could help to bring out the clouds. I'll rarely use more than -0.3 stop Exposure on a LR grad.

Real ND Grads on camera can help, but If there's too much contrast I'm the scene I side with Pookey and prefer not to press the shutter - anything you do with PP will tend to look unnatural.
 
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One thing to try is to select the HSL/Colour/B&W section in the Develop module, click HSL, then Luminance then click the spot in the top left of that panel. This gives the cursor a cross hairs appearance and when dragged across a colour, it will increase or decrease the luminance. This works fairly well for skies. Don't overdo it though as you form artifacts and noise.
 
Thanks for the replies guys. I do use ND grads but it can still result in too much dynamic range at times. Lots of suggestions there - I'll try em all and see what works for me!
 
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