How to Replace the Sky in Photoshop (and Make a Sunset)

To replace the sky in Photoshop, open the photo and choose Edit > Sky Replacement. Pick a sky from the presets or load your own, adjust Shift Edge and Fade Edge until the horizon blends, set Foreground Adjustments so the land picks up the new sky’s light, and output to new layers so every part stays editable. For scenes with trees, fine detail or tricky edges, select the sky yourself with Select > Sky and refine it in Select and Mask. The same steps turn a gray evening into a sunset, with a few extra color adjustments covered below.

Most of the work is not the swap itself but making the new sky believable: matching light direction, color, brightness, edges and reflections.

Choose a Sky That Matches the Scene

The most common reason a sky replacement looks fake is a sky that could not have produced the light in the photo. Before you open any dialog, check four things:

• Light direction. If shadows in the foreground fall to the right, the brightest part of the new sky should be on the left.
• Light quality. Hard shadows need a sky with sun in it; a soft, shadowless foreground needs cloud cover. A sunset sky over a scene with short midday shadows never works.
• Perspective and lens. A sky shot with a wide lens, with clouds that fan out toward the edges, suits a wide landscape. A flat, telephoto-looking sky suits a tighter frame.
• Resolution. The sky should be at least as large as the photo. Upscaled skies look soft next to a sharp foreground.

The best skies are your own. Photograph dramatic skies whenever you see them, at golden hour, blue hour, in storms and on days with good clouds, and keep them in a folder sorted by type and sun direction.

Method 1: The Sky Replacement Command

Sky Replacement detects the sky, swaps it, masks the edge and adjusts the foreground in one dialog. It works well on scenes with a clear horizon, buildings and simple tree lines.

1. Open the photo and choose Edit > Sky Replacement.
2. Click the sky thumbnail to choose a preset, or click the gear icon to import your own skies.
3. Use the Move tool inside the dialog to drag the sky into position, and the Sky Brush to extend or reduce the sky area where detection missed.
4. Adjust Shift Edge to move the boundary between sky and land, and Fade Edge to soften the transition.
5. Under Sky Adjustments, set Brightness and Temperature to match the foreground, use Scale to size the clouds, and tick Flip if the sun is on the wrong side.
6. Under Foreground Adjustments, raise Foreground Lighting and Color Adjustment so the land takes on the sky’s color, and use Edge Lighting to blend light along the horizon.
7. Set Output to New Layers and click OK. Photoshop builds a group with the sky, its mask and the adjustment layers, all editable.

Afterward, open the group and refine the mask with a soft brush where the edge needs work.

Method 2: Manual Selection and Masking

For complex edges or full control, build the replacement yourself with a selection and a layer mask.

1. Choose Select > Sky. Photoshop selects the sky automatically. For uniform skies, Select > Color Range or the Quick Selection tool also work.
2. Choose Select > Select and Mask. Paint along leaves, hair and branches with the Refine Edge brush, and tick Decontaminate Colors to remove the old sky’s color from edge pixels. Output as a selection.
3. Place the new sky with File > Place Embedded, position it above the photo, and click Add Layer Mask. The mask takes the shape of the selection, so the new sky shows only where the old sky was.
4. Scale and move the sky (unlink the mask first so only the image moves) until clouds and light fall naturally.

Tip for trees and fine detail: instead of a selection, use Blend If. Double-click the sky layer, and under Blend If drag the black slider of Underlying Layer to the right. The new sky then shows only where the original was bright, which is usually the old sky. Hold Alt (Option on a Mac) and drag the slider apart to make the transition gradual. This handles gaps between leaves that no brush could trace.

New to masks? Layers and masks in Photoshop explains how they work and how to edit them.

Blend the New Sky Into the Scene

Placement takes a minute; blending is where a replacement succeeds or fails.

• Match brightness. Add a Curves adjustment layer clipped to the sky (Layer > Create Clipping Mask) and set the sky’s brightest part to roughly match the brightest part of the scene near the horizon.
• Match color. Use a clipped Color Balance or Hue/Saturation layer to bring the sky’s color temperature in line with the foreground. Then work the other way: a warm sky needs warm light on the land, through a Photo Filter or Color Balance layer on the foreground.
• Soften the edge. Blur the mask edge slightly, around 1 to 3 pixels at full resolution, so the boundary is not razor sharp where the original was soft.
• Add haze. Skies are paler and lower in contrast near the horizon. Paint a soft gradient of a light sky color at low opacity along the horizon so distant land and sky meet naturally.
• Fix fringes. Bright or blue halos around buildings and trees are left-over old sky. Decontaminate Colors fixes most; paint out the rest on a new layer with a color sampled from the object.
• Add reflections. Water, glass and wet ground must reflect the new sky. Duplicate the sky, flip it vertically, place it in the reflective area with a mask, lower its opacity and darken it slightly, since a reflection in water is usually a little darker than the sky it shows.

How to Make a Sunset in Photoshop

A sunset is a sky replacement plus warm, low light across the whole scene. You can swap in a sunset sky with either method above, or warm an existing sky that already has some color. Either way, the scene has to look lit by a low sun.

What real sunsets look like

• A gradient from yellow and orange at the horizon up through pink and magenta to blue or purple overhead.
• Warm orange and gold light on every surface that faces the sun.
• Cool, bluish shadows, because shadows are lit by the blue sky rather than the sun.
• Long shadows, rim light on edges, and lower contrast in the distance from haze.

Warm the sky with a gradient map

1. Add a Gradient Map adjustment layer (Layer > New Adjustment Layer > Gradient Map).
2. Build a gradient from deep purple through orange to pale yellow.
3. Set the layer’s blend mode to Soft Light or Color, and lower the opacity to about 20 to 40 percent.
4. Paint on the layer mask to limit the effect to the sky if the foreground goes too orange.

Warm the light with Color Balance and Curves

1. Add a Color Balance layer. In Highlights, move toward Red and Yellow; in Midtones, add a smaller amount of the same; in Shadows, add a little Blue.
2. Add a Curves layer and, in the Red channel, lift the upper part of the curve slightly; in the Blue channel, lower the upper part slightly. Highlights turn warm while the shadows stay close to neutral.

Add a sun and glow

1. Create a new layer and set it to Screen or Linear Dodge (Add).
2. With a large, soft brush in bright orange-yellow, click once where the sun should sit, low on the horizon and on the side your shadows point away from.
3. Duplicate the layer, apply a large Gaussian Blur for a glow, and repeat once more at a bigger radius for atmospheric light.
4. Mask the sun behind hills, trees or buildings so it sits in the scene rather than on top of it.

Finish by painting warm light on sun-facing surfaces with a soft brush on a Soft Light layer, adding thin rim highlights to edges, and lowering saturation slightly in areas far from the sun. Work in 16-bit mode (Image > Mode > 16 Bits/Channel) so smooth sky gradients do not band; see bit depth for why.

Would you rather capture a real one? How to photograph sunsets covers timing, exposure and composition in the field.

Common Mistakes

• Light that contradicts the shadows. A sun behind the camera with buildings lit from the side gives the edit away instantly.
• Halos and fringes. Zoom to 100 percent and inspect every edge, especially trees and rooftops.
• A sky too dramatic for the scene. A blazing sunset over a plain street at noon reads as fake. The sky should support the picture, not overpower it.
• Forgetting the foreground. A warm sky over cold, flat land is the most common giveaway. Grade the whole image to the new light.
• Missing reflections. A lake that still shows the old gray sky ruins an otherwise good replacement.
• Replacing skies that were fine. Overcast light suits many subjects; not every gray sky needs to go.

Try This

Take one photo with a plain sky and a clear horizon, and one with trees against the sky. Replace the sky in the first with Edit > Sky Replacement, and in the second with Select > Sky and Blend If. Use a sky from your own files with the sun on the same side as the shadows. Compare the edges at 100 percent and note which method handled the trees better. Then turn the first photo into a sunset with a gradient map and Color Balance, and check that the foreground looks lit by the new sky.

Questions People Ask

Is sky replacement cheating?

It depends on the context. In photojournalism, documentary work and many contests, replacing a sky misrepresents what happened and is not acceptable, and in real estate it can mislead buyers. In creative and personal work it is an editing tool like any other; be open about it when viewers would assume the scene is unaltered.

Where is the sky replacement tool in Photoshop?

It is under Edit > Sky Replacement. A related command, Select > Sky, selects the sky without replacing it, which is the starting point for the manual method and for adjusting an existing sky. Older versions of Photoshop have neither; use Color Range or Quick Selection and a layer mask instead.

Can I replace the sky in Lightroom?

Lightroom has no command to swap the sky. Its Select Sky mask lets you darken, recolor or add contrast to the existing sky, which is often enough. See Lightroom masking for how. A full replacement needs Photoshop or another layer-based editor.

How do I make a sky replacement look realistic?

Match the light direction, color and brightness of the sky to the foreground, soften and clean the edges, add haze near the horizon, and update reflections. Then flip the image horizontally for a fresh look; errors you have stopped seeing often jump out.

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