Dark blue evening sky

<p>While heading to the subway after work last week, I noticed how beautiful the sky was. No, this was not the typical evening sky. By this time the warm colors had largely faded and I was looking at about 90 degrees away from where the sun had set behind some clouds some time ago.</p>

<p>What I saw was an amazing clear deep blue color. There were also some rather poorly-defined thin but puffy white clouds which seemed be lit mainly by the city lights below (they did not have sunset colors, and if not lit by the sunset light then they should have been darker than the sky rather than lighter). There was nothing in the foreground that would not have detracted from this scene, so if I'd had a camera (plus a tripod and the right lens) with me I would have photographed just the sky with the clouds. My goal would have been to get a semi-abstract intensely dark blue photo with scattered white non-sunlit clouds.</p>

<p>So, here's the problem. There was little contrast between the sky and the clouds and there needed to be more. Making the sky darker would have ruined the deep blue, making it black, so I needed to keep the sky the same while making the clouds lighter. The sky light may have been polarized (not sure about this after sunset) but the cloud light probably was not, so a polarizer would not have worked the way I wanted.</p>

<p>Was there anything I could have done, or could do next time, to capture this deep blue while lightening the clouds? Overexpose, perhaps? I'm thinking of trying to capture this again when the weather is right, while we still have winter lighting conditions which really do seem to make a difference around here.</p>

<p>Thanks,<br>

Bill D.</p>

<p>Bill,<br>

I'd suggest a two-prong approach.</p>

<p>First tool, the camera. Bracket the situation and see what you get. Work in raw. It sounds like the result from the camera won't be pleasing, due to the limitations of the camera and the demands of the situation.</p>

<p>Second tool, Photoshop. Use Photoshop to "pull" out the details, tones, etc. that you want to have in the situation. Also, there is a very good set of tools in Tony Kuyper's Luminousity Masks that will help you to bring more detail and tone out of areas that you feel are too light/too dark. You can find Tony's PS actions (for a very reasonable donation) at www.goodlight.us. Or, if the moderator pulls the link, then just google on Tony Kuyper photography southwest - you'll find him...</p>

<p>Good luck,</p>

<p>Tim!</p>

<p>Bill, I was fiddling around with a similar problem yesteday but it was at the opposite end of the luminosity scale, snow. Even though my snow was not blown out there was no detail. I think this might work for you also.<br>

First shot in RAW and check you histogram. Expose to the right to avoid noise. Beware of clipping. <br>

Open in PS, change color space to Lab(See note at end). Make a curves adjustment. You will probably see two peaks in the curves dialog. The large one on the left is the blue sky and the one to the right of it are the clouds. You can place you mouse over a cloud, left click and the point will appear in the Curves line. <br>

While in Curves click on the Curves line just to the right where the luminosity of the clouds spike and drag it upwards. Don't worry that the rest of you image looks terrible. Go to the left of the side of the cloud luminosity peak add another point to the curve and drag downward. Adjust the two points until the clouds look the way you want. Again don't worry about the rest of the image. Press OK.<br>

Click on the Curves mask. Fill it with BLACK. All you changes will disappear. Select the brush tool. Reset the colors to the default. Make sure white is on top. Use a soft edged brush, adjust size for a cloud and set opacity to 100%. Take one stroke on one cloud. If the results are too harsh, Undo and lower the opacity. I usually build up my strokes with an opacity of 15% or less.<br>

Be sure to set the color space back to RGB. Note: I am pretty sure you can do the same thing in the RGB space. But you must set the Blending mode of the Curves layer to luminosity so as not to affect the colors. Either way should work.<br>

Good luck,<br>

pat</p>

<p>I suggest you to make two or more shots using a tripod or a solid plain to lock camera. Otherwise you can shot using bracketing (ideal is -2 0 +2). At home you can adjust and combine three shots in a HDR (high dinamic range) photo using appropriate tools or manually (photoshop or Paint shop pro layer are useful...).<br>

Bye</p>

<p>Thanks for the suggestions! While I normally do my serious work in film, I do have a basic DSLR (D60) with appropriate lenses, though no Photoshop yet. I'll have to see what I can do by playing around a bit with bracketing if I see something like this again and have a camera on hand. Next time the clouds will be different, but the lighting on the clouds could be similar at the same location and at the same point in the evening due to urban light which is fairly constant day to day. It would be easier at home where there is less urban light and the clouds would probably be darker than the sky, producing a different effect but at least producing some contrast.</p>

<p>Bill D.</p>