In architectural photography, the post-production when creating exterior images is often less complex than when working with interiors. Exteriors are often more time dependent for a project, resulting in the ability to wait until just the right capture time. We face factors (weather arguably being the biggest) that can pose as obstacles when shooting outside - sometimes these unveil great surprises and allow us to capture a piece of architecture in a unique and exciting light, while others can leave a project feeling flat and unresolved. One thing many photographer’s will do to enhance images taken on days that aren’t quite up to snuff, is to replace a grey or washed out sky with one with a little more character. In this video I share a timelapse of the editing process of a residential exterior that was taken on a day when became socked in with a flat layer of clouds, which is why I decided to treat this photo with a sky replacement to create some balance and texture above the lush courtyard view with a pool and guest house as the central focus.
Sky replacements are a common subject of YouTube and other tutorials so instead of create my own here, I just wanted to share a quick view of how I go about it when incorporating a new sky into an image. Through fairly simple use of luminosity masks and adjustment layers, we are able to blend in a replacement sky seamlessly with the existing conditions. It is important to have a subtle hand when adding a new sky so not to end up with an artificial looking image. Although not obvious in the example below, it is also very important to be conscious of the direction of light in the replacement sky as it relates to the lighting conditions in the image you were shooting. This can be much more apparent when replacing skies in shots taken at the early and late hours of the day as the skies brightness from right to left can vary dramatically, making it a dead giveaway if done wrong.
The luminosity mask created for the initial sky replacement in Photoshop.
In addition to the sky replacement, I also used another very useful (and slightly tucked away) tool in Photoshop called the Render Flame tool. From time to time, we are asked if we can Photoshop in fire to a fireplace or fire pit that is either not working on the day of shooting, or one that we don’t have the control over. This has always been a real challenge in the past and something I tended to avoid, but with the development of the Render Flame tool (a close relative to the equally powerful Render Tree tool), we are able to create a realistic looking flame to incorporate into these scenes that can be very hard to tell from one captured in camera. I am by no means an expert at using these tools, so will refrain from trying to give a true tutorial and instead would just say that they are well worth some experimentation. To use the flame tool, you first create a general path for the bottom line of the fire on a new layer, and then go to Filter/Render/Flame. From here you are given a ton of parameters to toy around with until you have generated something that fits your needs. Once I have placed the fire into a scene, I will add some noise, slight blur, and a glow around the flames that I think best fit the scene.
Photoshop’s Render Flame dialog box.
Of course it should go without saying that techniques such as these are highly subjective and the majority of the time, the resulting photograph’s from a thoughtfully designed project require little more than some color and contrast work to process a raw image into an image that tells a clear and honest story of the designers intent. However I think it is important to know the tools that we have at our disposal and when to deploy them in order to make the imagery truly stand out and best represent the intent of the architect.
