Skies can be easily replaced in Photoshop (v2021 and later) or the Skylum Luminar plugin. The instructions below are for Photoshop, For Skylum sky replacement please refer to the Skylum website.
Before you start it’s best to choose a photo that doesn’t have a misty sky on the horizon also it’s harder to replace the sky of photos with a shallow DOF though we do have some softer skies in the packs which can be used in these cases.
Sky Replacement in Photoshop
These quick instructions will show you how to add skies to the sky replacement tool in Photoshop
2021 and later. The screenshots below were done In PS 2024
Open a photo with a sky you want to replace in Photoshop.
Go to Edit>Sky Replacement
When the panel opens click on downward arrow to the right of the sky
Click on the folder button at the bottom of the panel
When the dialogue box opens name your folder, I’ve named mine Flypaper Blue Skies.
Then click on the plus button at the bottom of the panel and navigate to where you’ve saved
your Flypaper Skies, select all the skies in the Blue Skies folder and click open . Wait for
Photoshop to load the skies; it can take a wee while.
Repeat with your other Sky Packs naming the folders Flypaper Golden Hour, Flypaper Night
Skies etc.
Now your skies are in Photoshop ready for use.
Then it’s just a matter of clicking on the skies till you find one that works in your image.
Skies can then be moved using the move tool at the top left of the sky panel.
You can adjust your sky and foreground using various controls of the replacement panel but that is beyond
the scope of this basic tutorial.
When you’re happy with your sky click okay and return to the main Photoshop screen.