The first thing I had to do was fix mom’s eyes – it looks like she was just about to blink! So I cloned better eyes from another shot (one where the baby was hiding her face!). To do this, I used the clone tool. At the same time I decided the dead treetops were distracting so I cloned those out too. Then I went on to my regular editing steps.

Using Photoshop Actions to Enhance a Blue Sky and a Rainbow

As photographers, we have no control over the weather conditions. Sometimes we get rained on and other times we get lucky enough to get beautiful light or even to cross paths with a rainbow.

This photo was sent in by Crystal Smith of Envision Image Photography. She wrote, “Saturday night, after a short cloudburst on their outdoor reception, Robin and Jeremy were lucky to be the beneficiaries of a beautiful full-arc rainbow on their wedding day.  It was a photographer’s dream!
When I got the pictures home that night and chose what shot I was using as my ‘sneak peek,’ the sky was a very overpowering gray do to the weather, which made the rainbow almost imperceptible. I knew the only Photoshop action I had in my arsenal that would bring out both the color of the sky and the the colors of the rainbow was color explosion from the Complete Workflow Action set for both Photoshop and Elements.  Here is what I did to this photo, step by step.”

1. I masked off the house in the background and cloned it out.
2. I ran PW’s “cooler” action from her Set 2 to bring some blue into the sky.  I had it at 100%.
3. I flattened the image.
4. I ran MCP’s Color Explosion to bring out vivid blue colors in the sky and all of colors of the rainbow. I was very careful to make sure Robin and Jeremy did not get brushed over with that powerful color action…her hair is already a fiery red!  This brought out the blue sky and the rainbow to perfection.
5.  I finished up with PW’s “boost” action from her set1, at about 50%.

At the beginning of June, I attended a Photography gathering in Banff, which is in Alberta, Canada. It was absolutely breathtaking.  Snow covered mountain tops everywhere.  And since I live in Michigan, it wasn’t like anything I get to see often.

I took this shot from the hotel.  Yes, this really was our view! This photo is beautiful, but the trees in the foreground were dark and the photo lacked contrast.

Above is the original photo, straight out of camera.  It just needed a lift.

Here are steps I took to get from the before to the after using Photoshop actions and layer masks.

1. To enhance the color of the sky, I used “Sky is Bluer Illusion” – a Photoshop action that makes blue skies even bluer. This is included in the Bag of Tricks action set. It was way too intense for the look I wanted so I adjusted the opacity to 34%.  I could have created a really crazy, intense blue sky otherwise, but I still wanted it to look real.
2. I wanted some contrast, but with flat photos like this it’s very hard to add contrast. What happens usually… the dark areas get even darker, almost like a blob. So, I needed to just affect the mid-tones.  I used “Magical Clarity” from the Bag of Tricks set – this action adds mid-tone contrast in Photoshop.
3. I did not love the color of the trees in this image.  I felt they were too deep green.  I used the “Grass is Greener” action from the Bag of Tricks, to paint on a richer, more vibrant color green. The layer opacity was at 67%, but I only painted the green on at 16%. The effect was subtle, but added to the photo.
4. The last things I wanted to do all had to deal with lightening and darkening. The tree area looked too dark. I fixed this by using “Peek-a-Boo” from the Complete Workflow set.  This action finds the shadow areas and lightens them. I lowered the opacity of this layer to 64%.
5. Then I used the free Photoshop action, “Touch of Light/Touch of Darkness” to finish the photo. With the lightness layer selected, and using a low opacity brush, I painted on the trees, one side of each to add dimension. Then with the darkness layer selected, I painted on the sky to deepen the color a bit.

The whole edit took about 3 minutes. And the result is below: