#sky replacement using photoshop

[llama--plumbobsims]

the pictures speak for themselves

[stinkrascal]

i have my posts queued up, it will post tomorrow! very excited to get back into the swing of posting straud <3 <3 <3 like you dont even know how happy this makes me ahahahah

[sirfrogsworth]

Birds of a Feather

So, I am a photo manipulation specialist. This is an art form in which you take real photographic assets and combine them to make something new. Most people call it "photoshopping." I've actually been doing this for much longer than I've been a photographer. I think I got my first version of Photoshop in the early 2000s.

I love combining my two artistic specialties. For years I was always using assets photographed by another person. But now I can shoot a lot of my own assets and it feels much more satisfying.

However I always have this weird guilt when I post a manipulated photo. I warn people when I replace a sky or add stars in the night sky. I worry people will judge me for not posting a 100% authentic photograph. But I am trying to create something from inside my head and that doesn't always align with the reality in front of me.

I am not trying to trick anyone.

I'm just trying to create something cool.

So I think I'm going to stop worrying about telling people I added stars or enlarged a moon or added a flock of birds.

Though I might brag about this cool reflection I created in the water.

Look at them fancy bird squiggles!

Some of my photos may be as is. Some of them I am going to let my creativity run wild. And I may tell you if I manipulated something, but only because I think it is neat and not because I am ashamed of my artistic process.

Also, did you know the Mississippi River has sharks?

[pudding-parade]

I mooned you! :D And it's only a "little bit" photoshopped! *cough*

Sorry, I've not been around much again. Honestly, I've been playing lots of No Man's Sky. I just haven't been in much of a Sims-playing mood, and I've been playing No Man's Sky instead of scrolling through Tumblr. I know, I'm awful. :)

BUT! I am looking to do an Ultimate Overhaul™ of Oasis Landing, which I can keep on hand to use whenever I go there in a save. I always add lots and stuff to it, and I'm tired of doing it every damn time.

And then I decided to also make an even more elaborate version and mess around with playing Oasis Landing as a quasi-homeworld via the Traveler mod. For that version, I'm demolishing all the stupidly-big EA residential lots and replacing them with more smaller lots, on which I'll build my own things. I've been gathering CC for that project version, since I'm not a fan of most of the Into the Future or Store "future" stuff, and there's not much in the way of furniture and fixtures that's passable for a "future" look in the game otherwise. Some of the Late Night stuff will do it, but otherwise it's slim pickings to use to furnish a whole world. But CC means downloading stuff, looking at it in-game to see if it meets my quality standards and is also sufficiently maxis-matchy, making collection files so that I have a prayer of finding what I want while building, etc. It's time-consuming and not very Tumblr-sharing-friendly, so...Yeah. That's what I'm up to when I'm touching Sims at all.

[the-nosy-neighbor]

Sunny

Information and speculation about a concept that Clown has made clear is no longer part of the project.

Notes gathered from Tumblr/Clown’s posts:

Was a bird character in early stages of development for WH.  Sunny was a brazilian (?) bird that was bilingual.  He was pictured with maracas.  

Sunny was dating Frank, which leads everyone to say that Sunny is Frank’s ex.

Sunny had a bright and friendly personality, and served as a foil to Wally.

Wally would have eventually murdered Sunny to hide his secrets.  

Clown stated that Sunny was created as a sort of hero character, but over time, Clown believed that the story shouldn’t have a hero. 

Sunny would save everyone by exposing Wally.  

Concept photos show Sunny on the phone, as a foil to Frank (opposites)

On the sticker sheet, Sunny’s name is upside down, which led my partner to turn the image upside down, which gives us a 9 instead of the 6 we were looking at.

Partner also mentioned that the other characters are holding their numbers, but Sunny’s is in his mouth.

We wondered if Sunny wasn’t going to be resurrected and become the 9th neighbor or a ghost or something, but Clown has been very insistent that Sunny is gone and no longer part of the project. (in light of conversations tonight, I might have been speculating about the wrong neighbor as a ghost)

Could Clown be throwing us off?

 “Some say Home is the 9th neighbor” some say because others say Sunny was the 9th neighbor?

Edit: the guestbook has a comment that says "where did the 9th neighbor go?"

But, there is a phone without an owner and it looks old and beat up (also, made of wood).  Could this be Sunny’s phone?  The phone/card illustration (opposites) shows him on a red phone, and he is #6, where Frank is 3 (also yellow).  

I’m not sure if the you’re free/i’m sorry graphic is Clown’s.  It really looks like their style and resembles art I have seen of Frank (insert image of Frank with female hands in front of him) and also Wally (hand coming out of his mouth)

You’re Sunny, You’re Free:  This image shows Sunny looking heroic, obviously behind some kind of door, with each character’s hands touching him.  Could be in fear, supplication, pushing?  The lightened image shows the many sets of eyes on this guy. 

Looks like the notes on Sunny's shirt

On the site, one of the first pictures in the roll was an ad for some Playfellow products, with a blank spot and letter write overs.  Let me tell you, from the beginning I have been obsessed with clarifying some of these images, and I have learned how to use photoshop way better as a result of my obsession:

When I first manipulated this image, I was convinced that there was some kind of Moon-headed guy there in the dark.  I could see a crescent moon shape.  I was convinced (and I wrote some about) that there was some kind of moon character to balance out Sally’s character, as there are sun and moon combos around.  

But when I really started thinking about Sunny, I looked at this and thought, not a crescent moon, a beak.  Sunny was pushed out of this ad, because he was pushed out of the show/reality/whatever.  Sally comes in as his replacement.  For the life of me, I can’t think of why Clown wouldn’t have just called the new character Sunny.  After all, she is the sun.  

This could all be wishful thinking because I really like this character.  When compared with the other characters, Sunny is fun and cool.  Plus, Sally is an actor who came in on a deus ex machina (fell from the sky, OK).  She is another kind of petty and weird character who just replaced this other guy, almost like an actor in a recast role.  

Sunny image/ad for fisher price people style toy.  The neighborhood exists and the children have seen it.

“The Neighborhood”; Sunny.  The Neighborhood’s happiest little blue bird flies in with a dance in his heart!  It’s like he’s really here!  So we’re going to get rid of it for good! We’re all going to get rid of it! we’re going to get rid of it for good! We’re all going to get rid of it! we’re going to get rid of it for good! We’re all going to get rid of it! we’re going to get rid of it for good! We’re all going to get rid of it! You’re  going to get rid of it for good! We’re all going to get rid of it! You’re  going to get rid of it for good! We’re all going to get rid of it!  You’re  going to get rid of it for good! We’re all going to get rid of it!

I think it is very possible that Sunny will make another appearance. Maybe he will only appear as a memory.  

[mercymaker]

i've been meaning to ask for a while now but do you colour your backgrounds frame by frame or some other method? if it's frame by frame, you have such an eye for detail cause it all looks so seamless, there's no overlap with colour in places where the characters move at all

Hey, thank you!

It honestly depends on the footage and what I'm trying to achieve and what colors I start with. Lately I've been experimenting a lot with hue and saturation and trying to isolate colors to certain groups using it. It's not always seamless (depending on the footage and what colors are there to begin with, it can look pixelated or patchy or the hue is not even throughout the area), however, so then I spend time trying to play around with additional methods (sometimes I paint over areas that fall out of the hue/saturation layer range with a colored brush and see if any blending mode makes it work, for example). I found that it's easier to make this work in darker scenes than in lighter (black tends to blend better than white) and also it's easier if the color is somewhat already present in the background already (so you don't need to 'paint' the whole background, just patches of a different color there (if that makes any sense?)).

It doesn't always work and I feel like it's much easier to achieve in game footage than movies or tv shows, because I have more control with camera or reshade tools and can position characters a certain way, bump up colors, etc.

Either way, it's not entirely perfect (you can see that in my latest green Malstarion set where I replaced a specific shade of light blue with green shade which was mostly for the sky/background but it's also briefly visible on Astarion's embroidery or the hilt of the dagger. Or Mal's hair in the first gif looks a bit pixelated because the 'border' between the shade of blue in her hair and the blue I modified in the background is fighting for its life), but I feel like it's ok enough to look presentable.

I hope this makes any sense, but genuinely I just kind of go a bit bonkers in photoshop and just add layers upon layers of adjustments, slowly building up and problem-solving as I go.

[radioradio]

Full Moon

So as @sirfrogsworth pointed out yesterday, My D600 had a case of SENSOR DUST.

You can see the spots here. Shooting at a very high aperture, like f/22 seen here, will make them stand out like a sore thumb. The D600 had a reputation for being particularly bad at this, throwing oil on the sensor to the point where Nikon offered a free shutter replacement, and eventually scrapping the 600 all together in favor of the D610, which was essentially just the D600 with an upgraded shutter.

Learning the history of the D600 after I'd already placed the order, I quickly added a full-frame sensor cleaning kit to my toolkit. It's a pack of single use swabs and a bottle of cleaning solution you can dole out by the drop. Why the main cleaning kit came with just a spray bottle, I cannot explain.

Anyway, two drops of solution, one pass in the same direction with each side of the swab later, and...

Much better! Both shot with the 50mm f/1.8D @ f/22, btw.

Fast forward to evening. I work nights, so it's just after breakfast, and I have the night off. It's about a 40 minute drive into the city and the West End Overlook. I go there a lot, because it's a good place to put any new knowledge into practice and compare it to previous visits. Plus, I spent good money on that Manfrotto tripod, and want to get use out of it.

Tonight was a full moon, which was both good and bad. You'll see in a moment.

For the most part, I'm shooting f/5.6 at ISO 200 aperture priority. Why? Because that's the combines result of assorted googling and photography book reading on night photography.

Once more with the moon in the shot.

Thanks to the full moon, Lightroom is a little bit confused. The sky is way brighter than it actually is...

Never mind the shaking, that was just a phone pic to tell friends what I was doing at the time. But it shows what it looked like in real life.

I started looking through my presets, but nothing really came close to rendering an accurate version of the scene.

I think that second one comes close maybe? I usually just stick with Auto, but Auto isn't doing it tonight.

I moved on to the Duquesne Incline Overlook. Not seen here, but I'm starting to run into a little bit of gear trouble.

And one in 16:9.

I moved on to Station Square, and here's where I ran into a problem. The 28-70mm lens did NOT want to autofocus on the buildings across the river. I fiddled with settings, turned the camera on and off, and even removed and reseated the lens. Could not get it to play nice.

So in order to salvage that stop, I broke out the 50mm f/1.8D that has mainly just been along for the ride when I go out. Tonight was it's chance to shine.

Oh, and that autofocus issue? Just out of shot here is a tall iron fence. Tall enough that I had to raise the center pole of the tripod a good foot to clear it. The camera STILL kept wanting to latch onto it for focusing. So it goes.

A few years ago I took a short course in Photoshop sponsored by WVU as part of Continuing Education. I should see if any of the local unis have anything similar for Lightroom.

[hekate-brimo2]

Chapter Three of “Spes Novum” Aka my Supervillain fic inspired by @wingedcat13 and the Synoverse is up on AO3 here and on Tumblr Below.

I dropped a request into the West Coast Villains groupchat, asking for anyone willing to distract The Patriot and American Girl for a few hours. I got a response pretty quickly, Earth-Shaker said he wasn’t busy, so he’d start terrorizing an area they commonly protected. It didn't take long to get a news alert about the heroes fighting Earth-Shaker, so I let Kayla know and she flew South, headed for her parents’ house.

I woke Carson with a kiss to their temple and together we wandered around the bay, admiring the estuaries and the nests of the seabirds. We’d seen them all before of course, but it never hurts to slow down and appreciate the beauty of nature. We had just rounded the bottom of the bay, headed towards the Pacific when we heard the crack of a super coming out of Mach 1 above us. Instinctively, I decreased the gravity below Carson and I, ready to push us both in opposite directions, but it was unnecessary, as the flying super was just Kayla. She’d changed her clothes before she returned. She still wore the motorcycle boots and the bracelets, but now she had on black tights and a purple, floral skirt. Her baseball tee had been replaced with my merch, a gray T-Shirt that read “Gravity Rocks” on the front and my face wearing sunglasses on the back. Kayla herself was grinning wide when she landed, dropping onto the balls of her feet from just off the ground. She adjusted the strap of her duffel bag and looked up at me, still grinning.

“Why, dear Kayla, do you own my merch?” I asked, incredulous

“I bought it because I thought my parents would hate it. I was right, my friends love it though.” Kayla answered

“It is a good design.” Carson spoke up, leaning against my shoulder.

“They would say that, they designed it.” I replied

We began walking back to my lair, quietly. I sighed after some time and looked up at the sky.

“Kayla, I have to ask you some… important questions, but I will give you time before you answer. One is about your future as a civilian, and one is about your future as someone with powers.” I said

Kayla retreated into herself a bit, not-quite recoiling, but answered “Okay, go ahead.”

“First things first, and this question has a few parts, When I asked you why you came to my lair to escape your parents, you said I was your best option. Do you not have any other adults you could go to? A friend’s parents, or your grandparents?”

“Um,” Kayla started after a while, “My grandparents are dead, at least according to my mom and dad… and, I… none of my friends know who my parents are, or… or about my pronouns.”

“I see.”

“I… I came to you because people are… like really vocal about you being, uh… nonbinary. A lot of people online like to photoshop your face onto the nonbinary pride flag and say it’s the nonbinary supervillain pride flag.”

“Understood, I’m sorry you don’t have anyone else to talk to about this, we should see if we can fix that, but… that brings us to part two of the question: What would you like to do about your guardianship moving forward? I know several lawyers who specialize in the emancipation process, although I don’t know your age. I… there is another option I can put forward, but… well I don’t want to upset you.”

“I’m uh… I’m fifteen. I don’t know if that’s old enough to be considered an emancipated minor… uh… what’s… what’s the other option?”

“Legally speaking, as civilians, Carson and I could sue for custody of you, on the grounds that you are being abused. That being said, we didn’t want to presume, which is why I wanted to ask you.”

Kayla stopped. I didn’t notice for several steps, but when I turned around she and Carson were crouched on the sand, Carson’s arms around Kayla’s shoulders. Kayla was crying, which made me hesitate. I'm not always possessed of much tact, but Carson made eye contact with me, and I rejoined them.

“I’m… I’m sorry.” Kayla started when she regained her breath. “It just… sorry, it hit me. I guess… I guess it didn’t feel real when I was packing, and… and when mom hit me.”

“That’s okay, Kayla. You don’t have to make any decision, we can table this for as long as you want, you are not on a timeline. I suggest we go back to the lair, and watch tv, I’ll ask Cook to pop some popcorn and make some hot chocolate, sound good?”

“Okay.”

Carson took Kayla and set her up in their old room, we weren’t always lovers, while I went to the kitchen to beg Cook’s forgiveness and kindness. She relented quickly, pleased to hear that our guest was staying. All of us, including Cook and Tom, watched a good portion of Avatar: The Last Airbender that night, and ate our weights in popcorn. The next week, in fact, passed in relative peace. I took to showing Kayla how my own powers worked, demonstrating how I changed the force of gravity, and even taking her on a short trip to Evilmart to show off my wormholes. Kayla also took to training in the gym, either with Carson or myself. She didn’t develop super strength like her father’s, but her mother’s speed came through, and then something unexpected: transmutation.

I had left Kayla in the gym with Carson for the evening, a week after she’d moved into my lair. I’d planned on sitting at the bar and mixing a drink or two for myself and Tom, but was quickly called back into the gym by Kayla’s concerned shout of “Beren!”

Kayla and Carson were standing in front of the Heavy bag, Kayla was wearing her gym shorts, a too-large tank top, and had some fighting tape around her knuckles, so I assumed she’d been the one to hit the bag, the bag which was now made of crumbling clay.

“Huh.” I said, turning to Kayla, “What were you thinking about when you hit the bag, sweetheart?”

“Uh… pottery in art class at school. I was thinking about the last thing I’d even come close to punching, which was the chunk of clay my teacher had given me to knead the air out of.” She answered

“Interesting. Do you think you could do it again?”

“I uh… I dunno, I can try.”

Kayla put her hand against the bag, or half a bag now, and concentrated for a moment, visibly frustrated, until the clay shimmered, the outside turning back into leather and the inside turning into granules of blue sand, which poured onto the floor. The clay that had crumbled away from the clay bag did not return to its original form, remaining a lump of mostly-dry clay.

“Interesting, so it only affects things connected to what you’re changing. I wonder if it changes based on what you consider one object… we need to run some tests.” I muttered, stopping once I noticed Kayla wobble on her feet. “Okay, how tired are you after that?”

“Hm? Oh… uh, pretty tired, like… exhausted actually.”

“Okay, so it’s extremely taxing for you, also good to remember. Go Lie Down, we’ll discuss this later.”

Near one a.m. the next morning I was wandering through the lair, Patrolling might be the correct word as it was my paranoia keeping me awake, and I happened to pass Kayla’s room. I never meant to listen to the conversation I heard, but I also couldn’t stop myself.

“Charlie! Hey!” Kayla said, happier than I’d ever heard her

“Hey! Long time no see! What’s going on? Wait… that doesn’t look like your room, where are you? Did you finally tell somebody about your parents? Holy shit, did you run away?” Another girl answered, their voice coming through phone speakers

“Woah, woah, chill out. Um… kinda, is the answer.”

“What do you mean, babes?!”

“I mean, like… okay, I’ve gotta tell you a lot, and you probably won’t believe some of it, but… whatever. My parents… My mom and dad are The Patriot and American Girl.”

Kayla paused for dramatic effect, but the other girl just hummed

“Are you not… did you know?”

“Kinda, it makes sense. Same hair, same eyes, also like… My adoptive mom is Doctor Omni, I’m… not not a part of that world.”

“Fuck off your mom is not Omni.”

“Yeah! My mom was there when she got her powers, they were on the same research team.”

“Do you have powers?”

“Same as Omni, I was… maybe also there.”

“Shut uuuup.”

“Whatever, okay, so your parents are superheroes, and abusive, that doesn’t answer any of my questions.”

“Okay, well… so when I was figuring out where I could go to get away from my parents, I… I maybe jokingly decided the only place safe was Maestrum Gravis’s lair. Cuz, like… they’re queer, and they already hate my parents, so like… safest place.”

“Supervillains are usually more reasonable than superheroes, in my experience.”

“Anyway, I’m… in their guest room, I guess. They wanted to kill my parents, but I asked them not to, and now… uh, they kinda just… a week ago, which is like a day after I showed up, they offered to sue for custody of me? Them and their… partner? Carson.”

“Damn.”

“Yeah.”

“Are you gonna take them up on it? You absolutely should, but it’s your decision.”

“Um… I think so. I want to. I’m just… I’m just scared of what my parents will do. I… even when they were… even at their worst, I did… love them, I guess. They weren’t always bad parents, and like… they’re under a lot of stress.”

“Kay, how many times have they called you since you left? How many times have they come to get you?”

“They… they came the first day, I mean… they were still calling me their son… and they haven’t called since. Haven’t even shown up here. Oh.”

“Yeah. I’m sorry, babes.”

“I wish you were here, I could use a hug.”

Every ounce of hesitation left my body at that, and some parental instinct I had took over. I knocked on Kayla’s door, and waited for her to answer it. When she did, I wrapped her in a hug that would crush any normal human.

“I’m so sorry, sweetheart. I didn’t mean to eavesdrop.” I whispered

“It’s okay.” She answered, laugh-crying

“Uhh… should I hang up?” Came Charlie’s voice from Kayla’s phone over my shoulder

“No!” Kayla and I said at the same time

Kayla looked at me weirdly, and I said “Kayla told me she had no one else to talk to about things like her parents and her gender, I would like to meet the person who changed that. I also heard you mention Omni, and I haven’t seen her in ages! You should both come over sometime.”

“I’ll talk to her about it, I’m sure she’d be happy to. She doesn’t hang out with any of her super friends enough.”

“Just give me a date, I’ll make sure I’m not busy.”

[maloubelou]

Arched building that once contained a street altar Pompeii Walk by Mary Harrsch Via Flickr: These screen captures from the Pompeii Walking Tour 2020 video is courtesy of the POMPEII ARCHAEOLOGICAL PARK and ProWalk Tours. Note to educators: ProWalk Tours as producer of the original video footage has agreed to allow my derivative still images to be licensed with Creative Commons Attribution Sharealike so they can be freely used for teaching and research publications. Technical notes: I have used Topaz Sharpen AI to remove the slight motion blur in screen captures as well as Adobe Camera Raw to adjust clarity, texture, highlights, shadows, and occasionally haze and white balance. I increased dynamic contrast and added a subtle vignette with On1 Photo Raw Effects and removed distracting visitors and some barriers, as well as replaced empty skies with Photoshop and its Sky Replacement feature, changing the blend mode from Screen to Multiply to avoid excessive editing of the mask layer. You can explore the Pompeii Walk video yourself here - no special hardware is required : www.youtube.com/watch?v=sUYJ8LbF1YsT

[thorsenmark]

Sunset Highway (Great Basin National Park) by Mark Stevens Via Flickr: At a roadside pullout just off Nevada Hwy 50 with a view looking to the southwest and the mountains in Great Basin National Park. This was one of several images I captured using the LCD screen on my Nikon SLR camera to line up the center stripe and road with the more distant ridges and peaks. It was as I began working on the image in post production that I then decided to once again try out the sky replacement setting in Photoshop with this image. The sunset and colors with the clouds seemed appropriate for this national park setting. So the skies are part of the Adobe stock images in Photoshop but all else is captured with my Nikon D850 SLR camera. I later worked with control points in DxO PhotoLab 5 and then made some adjustments to bring out the contrast, saturation and brightness I wanted for the final image.

[mysticmoon-s]

what cloud cc do you use for the sky????!!!!

and what preset do you use? i’m on my phone so idk if you’ve already answered these or not

It's a sky replacement tool that comes with Photoshop 2021 and i'm using almond gshade preset

[astralsi]

hi eli, how are you? i know you made it clear that you are not wcif friendly, and i don't know if this is exactly a wcif, but i would love to know how you made the sky look so real and pretty in this post https://www.tumblr.com/astralsi/726309407465586688?source=share your screenshots are really beautiful, if you make a short film one day I would love to see it ♡

hiya !! so i used the photoshop sky replacement feature, @softpine has a little tutorial on how to use it. i also recommend sunblind by @softerhaze and the realistic cloud replacement by @alf-si if you want an in game alternative >:)

[airmanisr]

G-OHGA, Hughes OH-6A Cayuse "Loach", Duxford, 27-05-2016 by Gordon Riley Via Flickr: US Army 69-16011 - Sharpened with Topaz Labs SharpenAI then Photoshop Sky Replacement to give an "Apocalypse Now" feel to the image

[mooninpastel]

i came from your simsta and was wondering what cloud override / mod are you using ? it’s so realistic and beautiful and would want it in my game as well love your blog !

Hii! C:

Thank you so much, but I actually don't use any mod, I sometimes play with the sky using a Photoshop tool called sky replacement. This tool is only available with the last ps version, so before downloading it I would edit the sky by googling for sky overlays and trying to make it work.

I appreciate your message a lot c:

[zoearthuruni]

Continued manipulations:

With these next 3 manipulations I made, I realised I wanted to create more realistic photographs and focus mainly on architecture and messing around with lighting. With this photo of the church, I think it looks alright compared to the previous 3 I created, however, I think it still looks a bit off and could use much longer work with the lamp post and the brightness of the colour in the sky. For this first image, I used my own photo of the church, Davis' dark image of the sky, and Tyson's image of the trees and lamp post.

With this next image, I manipulated Joel's alleyway image by adding Mikaela's image of the night sky and my own photo of the lamps. I thought it would be interesting to see how these lamps would look within this image, as the light coming from a doorway in the image was producing the same warm tones of light that the lamps were creating. I think in creating this image my Photoshop skills are improving slightly and I am starting to like how my images are turning out slightly more.

This is the final manipulated image I experimented with, and I think this one has turned out to be my favourite one so far. I took Joel's image of the building and replaced the sky with Eileen's image, then edited it with the curves adjustment layer to move the sun directly behind the building and make the sky blend in more with the darker surroundings. I really like how it turned out as it feels like the atmosphere within the image has changed and it feels a bit warmer to me. Within this image, I also placed my own photo of the fruit in my garden onto the trees. With Joel's image, I removed the top metal cross thing from the height of the building as it was very hard to work with. This is a bit conflicting as it does mean I have impacted the building itself seeing how it is a real building that exists. I know there still can be some work done with the fruit on the trees and the overall lighting and shadows, but for this week's efforts, I am pleased with how this one has turned out.