Best "Seperation" Software plugin for Lightroom/Photoshop

[acroreef]

Dear Folks,

I do real estate photography and I sometimes need to replace the sky in among the trees, wires, homes, etc. What is the best, easiest, quickest selectiion software plugin available? I often need to replace a very gray sky with something very nice of my own choosing. I have Lightroom 5 and PS CS6. I know Photoshop has these capabilities but I'm wondering if there is something better out there?

Thanks to all who respond.

Dave

[Manfred M]

I use Photoshop for that type of work and while it can be a bit of a pain to do, can't think of any automation tools out there. This type of work is probably too difficult to fully automate.

Colour selection and other tools, mask, a bit of feathering and you are done, and you are done, assuming of course you have a suitable background to replace the gray sky with and still have it look "right".

[pnodrog]

Having made a sky selection (Photoshop CS6) I often expand the selection by a few pixels to use as the mask for the replacement sky layer. I then set the layer blend to darken. This method is pretty successful in avoiding any tell tale halo effects around foliage etc.

Of course you need to make sure that the grey sky has been adjusted to be lighter than the substitute sky.

[dennybeall]

Sounds to me like you have the best technique for you to use. Only thing better would be Photoshop CC(2014) which is a bit better technically.

[John 2]

Dave, there is a plugin called Topaz Remask 4 which will integrate with CS6 quite happily and which will do the job you describe. It allows you to roughly outline the portion of an image you want to keep, clean it up and then import it into your original image as a layer. You can then either copy and paste that layer onto you new sky image or insert the new sky behind the new layer in the original image. It is accurate enough to capture individual hairs in a portrait where you want to change the BG. There is at least one other software package that does this but from memory it is more expensive. Follow this link if it sounds interesting:

https://www.topazlabs.com/remask

[rpcrowe]

Perfect Photo Suite has a module called Perfect Mask which is easy to use and produces very nice results. Perfect Photo Suite can be used as a Photoshop Plug-in or a free standing program.

[JohnRostron]

I use Topaz ReMask as my separator of choice. The only problem I have with it is if I wish to retain both the cut-out and the background. I can get round this, but it would be nice if it were part of the package.

John

[davidedric]

Perfect Photo Suite has a module called Perfect Mask which is easy to use and produces very nice results. Perfect Photo Suite can be used as a Photoshop Plug-in or a free standing program

Agree that PPS masking works well, and I find it easier than Photoshop or Elements. Slight correction, in the latest version Mask is integrated into other modules, no longer standalone - which is an excellent step forward.

Dave

[tommcana]

Perfect Photo Suite has a module called Perfect Mask which is easy to use and produces very nice results. Perfect Photo Suite can be used as a Photoshop Plug-in or a free standing program.

I agree with you perfect photo suit is best and use Photoshop make different design.

[Texas Dave]

I think if you want the best results you need to learn more about your photoshop. Masking is just part of it, laying in any change in sky and you'll probably need some color blending of the immediate environment around the masked edges. Not to mention matching noise levels and such details.

[loosecanon]

I often find bland washed out skys are easy to replace with a simple method in photoshop layers.

Often the sky is by far the lightest part of the area of sky and surrounding image.
Put your image into a layer
add a new layer with your replacement sky in it
set lend mode to darken
put a layer mask on and quickly paint most of the image area apart from the sky, no need to be accurate round trees etc, but make sure things like white window frames are in the masked area.
The result is the replacement sky being darker replaces the washed out sky, especially in all the trees and so on that are a pain to mask out, gives a natural blend, and has the advantage of taking only a minute or two.

[jcuknz]

The trick part of the question was about those patches of sky within the branches but not connected to the main sky area.
Last time I did this I used the magic wand tool and then holding the shift key clicked on as many of the small areas as seemed to make the effort worth while ... then clicked the delete button to reveal the new sky in the layer below. It could be that PSP's shift key makes this simpler than the two stage process of PS ... have not used PS in must be a decade so a bit rusty on it.


Here not replacing the sky but making it look better for one of our members but there are lots of 'holes' in the branches to be adjusted with the main sky.

PSPx6 onwards has an 'Intelligent' selection tool which can save a lot of effort though also quite perverse in its detirmination to pick things up I don't want at times

[jcuknz]

A further thought is the Threshold tool you have somewhere in PS [ hopefully as an adjustment layer sub-tool as in PSP ] which can do the basic work of selecting a single toned area such as a grey sky which could be helped by adjusting your exposure to burn out the sky to either enable Magic Wand or the threshold tool to do its job .... this is done as an adjustment layer to make the selection and then by selecting the picture layer the selection works on that layer and not the one you made it with. Often the threshold layer needs to be 'touched up' but this can be relatively easy as it is purely black and white. You can also have a couple or more Threshold layers at different settings to be merged to make the final selection. So perhaps you do not need anything more than what you already have
I have read of one photographer having had 52 layers but except for one animation I did I have not approached anything like that

[John 2]

John, the method described by Loosecanon above is the way to finish off after you have made the initial selection. The only difference for me is that rather than painting out the unwanted areas, I use the clone tool set to pick up a similar bit of sky and paint that in. You can be quite coarse in your brush strokes because only the light areas are modified. It's also an easy way to get rid of fringing and sharpening halos.

[Bobobird]

Photoshop has pretty good feature called Focus Area - it selects almost everything that it considers to be infocus. You can then clean up, refine, add to, delete from the generated mask and save it as a selection.