How do you Keep Skies Blue?

The reason skies photograph blue sometimes and white other times and how to modify it.

How Do you Keep Skies Blue?
I am sure you have all taken some lovely photos of scenes that have a blue sky, but the resulting photo has a white sky. What happened?

It all has to do with light! (sound familiar). If you photograph your scene, with the light behind you and your subject is in full sun also, then you will get a photo with a blue sky. If your subject is in the shade and you take the exposure off that, then the sky will be many stops brighter and will look pale blue or white because it will be over exposed.If your subject is in very bright sun then the sky could end up a very deep blue.

Ways of Making the Sky More Blue

1. You can use a graduated filter that darkens the top and fades as it approaches the horizon / subject. (This was commonly used in film days). The Cokin filter system involves a holder that screws on the front of the lens and has slots for square filters that slide in.

2. Selectively adjust the exposure in Photoshop. If the sky is just light blue, you could select the sky and darken it using levels. If the sky photographs white, you would need to take two exposures - one exposed for the subject and the other exposed for the sky. In P hotoshop, you would combine the 2 photos and erase the part you don't want, using a layer mask.

3. Add a graduated filter in Photoshop to darken the sky. This works if the sky has some colour in it - not if it is white.

4. You can also use a polarizing filter which will darken the sky and make it more blue. It may not make a white sky dark blue but it may help. If you use this method, you need to get a filter that is made for digital- it is called a circular polarizing filter.

Experiment with these techniques and see what works for you.