DIGITAL PHOTO MENTOR

Photography tips, tutorials and guides for Beginner and Intermediate Photographers.

photography challenge photo editing day 5 ai sky replacement

Photo Editing Challenge Day 5 – Landscape and Sky Enhancement

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WARNING: This challenge and Luminar 4 are both outdated and obsolete. A better option is to do my newest, most up-to-date photo editing challenge HERE!

Today’s photo editing challenge topic is about processing landscape photos to bring out detail. I’ll also demonstrate the Luminar 4 AI Sky Replacement tool to show you how easy it is.

You will learn how to bring out detail in areas of the image that are overly dark or bright. Your challenge is to enhance the image, not go overboard, and keep the color natural-looking. 

New Challenge for 2021: With the launch of Luminar AI, we’ve created a brand new 5-day challenge using its amazing artificial intelligence features. Luminar AI has a free 7-day trial available (I provide that for you), which will allow you to follow along with the NEW video tutorials. If you’re new to photo editing, I recommend you take on the 5-day challenge.

If you already own Luminar 4 you can still do this challenge and practice while improving your editing skills when you do this 7-day challenge.

Luminar 4 AI Sky Replacement BEFORE photo example raw out of camera with no processing
This is the before image, but it’s actually from a set of 4 bracketed images, combined using Lightroom’s “Merge to HDR” feature to make one new DNG file. So it has a LOT of information for you to work with!
These are the original bracketed images so you can see there is detail in all areas of the scene.
These are the original bracketed images so you can see there is detail in all areas of the scene. 
final processed landscape photo with HDR, editing in Luminar and AI Sky Replacement applied
After editing the whole image, doing a sky replacement and adding the sky into the reflection in the water as well!

Luminar 4 AI Sky Replacement Feature

Dedicated landscape photographers can sometimes spend days at a location waiting for the conditions to be perfect for the shot they envisioned.

They shoot sunrise and sunset for days on end hoping to get the shot they want.

They’ll research the location ahead of time to ensure they make the best use of their time before they even leave their home.

So if you’re not able to do that, the chance of you getting the shot you want in a single frame is a lot less.

The new Luminar 4 AI Sky Replacement feature makes the job of taking your images from good to great much easier.

Photography Challenge Themes for the Week

Over the course of these 7 days, we’ll be working with these photography themes and practicing these editing techniques:

  1. Street photography – learn about basic edits like contrast and color adjustments and how to apply a Look or preset.
  2. Portrait and people photography – learn how to do skin retouching and facial enhancements the easy way, and keep it looking natural.
  3. Black and white conversion – see how to do it the right and wrong way, and how to take your b/w images to another creative level with split toning.
  4. Details and masking – you’ll learn how to do local edits that apply to just part of the image, and how to enhance sharpness and detail in those targeted areas. 
  5. Landscape photography – take your nature photos up a notch, bring out details in highlight and shadows areas, and see how to replace the sky (not everyone’s cup of tea but you’ll see how easy it is with Luminar 4).
  6. Texture overlay – learn how to give your images a fine art style with a texture overlay (you’ll even get a few of mine to play with and try out)
  7. Night photography – learn how to apply many of the techniques you already learned and bring it all together to enhance and bring out details in a stunning night photo I took in Japan.

Step 1 – Photo Editing Software

You’ll need to have a copy of Luminar 4 photo editing software already installed.

Step 2 – watch the video tutorial

Next, watch the video below and follow along if you want. Feel free to pause if you need to, or rewind and watch any parts again. If you have any questions just leave a comment at the bottom of this page or on the YouTube video.

We’re going to get a little more advanced today, so pause and rewatch the video as often as you need. The video is a bit longer as well because I cover more techniques and filters than in some of the others.

So we’re taking it up a level today! Stay with me, you can do this I promise! 

Also, as I mention in the video if sky replacement isn’t your cup of tea – just stop there. 

Step 3 – Process the image

Now it’s your turn!

Open the landscape photo in Luminar 4 or your software of choice and give it a go. Have some fun with it, but remember to not go overboard.

Bring up the detail in the shadow areas, and lower the brightness in the sky to bring out the color and detail there as well. 

I did this image in stages, let’s have a look at each one. 

Canmore Jun2015 0137 after no sky2
Stage one – here I have edited the image including both global edits (to the whole image) and local adjustments (targeted parts of the image only).
Canmore Jun2015 0137 after with sky no reflection
Stage two – now I have completed the sky replacement.
Canmore Jun2015 0137 after with sky2
Stage three – finally I have added the sky into the reflection in the water as well.
Canmore Jun2015 0137 after with sky3
Stage four – lastly, I decided that the sky and grass were too overly saturated so I toned them down a little and reduced the Sunrays filter as well.

AI Photo Editing: Read my review of Luminar Neo, the next generation photo editing using AI. It’s an industry game changer. If you’ve already got it, enrolling in my Luminar Neo course should be able to get you up and editing in days instead of weeks. Check it out.

Step 4 – Share your finished image

Lastly, we want to see what you’ve created – your final finished version (or a few of them). This is how to share your saved image. 

Use the commenting system on the bottom of this page to share your image, how you did it, and any experiences you had while doing the challenge. You can also share on social media using the hashtag #DPM-7DayChallenge

More Photography Challenges: check out our entire collection of photography challenges. You’ll find our daily and monthly challenges with lots of ideas and inspiration for creative photos. Perfect for beginners or experienced alike.

Conclusion

You have almost made it to the end of the 7-day photo editing challenge. Tomorrow we’ll cover how to apply a texture overlay, and we’ll bring everything you have learned together on day 7 with a night photography image. 

By spending some time every day practicing editing your photos, have you noticed an improvement so far?

Do you feel more confident than when you started on day one? 

I hope so, and that you’re getting a lot of value out of doing this exercise. 

Cheers,

Darlene Hildebrandt photographer DPM