Post Processing - Replace A Sky In Photoshop
At some point or other we have all taken a picture with a great subject but with a blown out sky, making the pic a little drab. In this tutorial i'll show you how to replace a sky with relative ease using Photoshop, I use CS5 but any version of photoshop should suffice.
Below is my original image before any processing work.
Load the image into photoshop and then find a suitable sky to fit the area you need to replace, open this as a separate image in photoshop. I have chosen the below sky to use as a replacement.
Using the rectangular marque tool drag out an area on the sky that you would like to use on your own picture. Copy the section using 'Ctrl + C' then go back to your original image and paste the clip using 'Ctrl + V'. You should end up with the below or something very similar.
Now you need to 'double click' with your mouse on the new sky layer in the 'Layers Palette' to the right. This will bring up a box called 'Layer Style', see below and using the slider shown, slide over to the right.
The below image shows where my slider ended up to give me the result I wanted, depending on your image and the sky you use it could be a different position.
What you'll notice when you are adjusting the slider is the sky layer will contract to cover the blown sky, if you have any grey buildings in your shot as mine then you may have to erase some blue dots as you are blending the sky with white/light grey colours and sometimes the blue sky comes through on the building itself.
Below is the finished image after some levels and curves adjustments to get the look I wanted.
Hope I could be of help to someone. 
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Thanks Mark-most of the photos I took this evening and on Tuesday at Sheffield Park had bleached skies. I've just bought Elements 10 this week so will see if I can follow your instructions and improve my photos
Paul
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Now this is very interesting Mark. I don't have photoshop but find that Serif photoplus has the same feature (never seen it before). With English weather skies are often disappointing and I have replaced the odd sky to improve the image. But I have always used a much more labourious method and try to avoid it as its too time consuming. I have two very poor shots (amongst many) from a clifftop in Wales taken on a horrible rainy day and just thought I would try this method. I have ended up with a very interesting result and changed the nature of both pictures.
Picture 1
Picture 2
Result
A slightly unexpected result but I like it
Thanks for sharing this tip because I have never seen it before and by trying it out in 5 minutes flat I can see many opprtunities.
This Photo Feature is going in my favourites...........THANK YOU VERY MUCH !!!!
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Thanks both.
Phil it's great to see your results from the tutorial, I'm glad I could help.
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thats a useful article. good results too. will give it a try although i use corel PSPx4 but should be something similar in it. Not used to messing with layers either so will give me some practice.
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Thank you Mark, Works in Elements 10, I have had to add a filter to some of my original pic's to match the time of day, especially sunsets, great blog, saved me a lot of petrol cost and the ability to enhance in and blend in lots of ways.your a diamond.
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Very useful, thanks for sharing
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Thank you mark excellent tutorial extremly useful, now I just need to get some nice sky shots and keep them very handy.
All the best
Steve
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I'm afraid I can't afford Photoshop etc so used a "freebie" called Helicon Filter. This programme enables you to "paint" in a sky using several variations. Hope this helps. George
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Thanks for this, Mark. I have a lovely photo of a mare and foal with a white sky I can try this on. Have saved to favourites for later!
Karen.
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One major problem with that is you have no shadows from the blazing sun, things like this jump out at me as I used to teach this for a living. Blending sliders only work in certain circumstances and are useful for taking white or black out. But leave a very hard edge which can be softened up by clicking the slider again to get the 'edge' (its kind of a split slider) then its a matter of fine tuning the hardness.
When replacing a grey sky, always choose a sky with clouds then you dont have to resort to using luminance sliders/dodge n burn tools to make the ground look like the sun is hitting it.
Always look at the whole picture, not just the sky.
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I've used film fo so long that i learned that if there nothing good going on in the sky. i just don't have alot of it in the photo.
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Thank you Plymdad ...This is a brilliant example of what a graphics program can do to improve an image. I also have Serif Photoplus x5 & x6 so I will be experimenting with the skies ...
Isn't it great to have knowledge handed to you for free from all the great bunch of members out there ... Long live MyFinePix...
Brian J. Adams