White Sky Blues

Fixing Those Boring White Skies
As discussed elsewhere on this site (see my article titledDigital Manipulations) I rarely use digital image processing for anything other than basic corrections. I am not a big fan of using the digital process to create artificial realities. But, since I have no problem using filters in the field to darken the sky, accentuate foliage or produce other image enhancing and pleasing effects, I similarly have no compunctions about doing so with the computer.
Monument Valley Sunset, 1999
This photograph, taken in Monument Valley, AZ in April 1999 is quite pleasing, in a postcard kind of way. But, the sky is a total bore, being just shy of plain white. In fact, plain white skies are the bane of every photographer's existence. We use polarizers, tinted grad filters, red and yellow filters when shooting monochrome.... anything to get rid of those boring clear white skies.
Here's a simple technique using Photoshop to fix those white sky blues.
Double click on the...