Changing Sky Color

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Today’s Question: When wanting to change the color of the sky [in Lightroom Classic], for example, once you select your preferred color, how do you transfer that color into your photo?

Tim’s Quick Answer: You can paint (or otherwise add) a color into an area of your photo in Lightroom Classic by selecting a targeted adjustment tool (such as the Adjustment Brush), choosing a color from the Color popup among the set of controls for the targeted adjustment, and then painting into the applicable area of the image.

More Detail: Among the adjustments you can apply to a targeted area of a photo in Lightroom Classic is the option to essentially paint with a color in a particular area of a photo. This option is available for the Graduated Filter, the Radial Filter, and the Adjustment Brush.

To apply a color to a particular area of a photo, you need to select that color from the Color popup. To activate the popup, click on the color swatch that shows the current color, and select the desired color from the color picker. You can then paint (or define a gradient or radial shape) to apply that color to a portion of the image.

Note that the effect will not be visible in areas where the image is pure white. In other words, if you have completely blown out the sky to white in an image, this Color option for the targeted adjustment tools in Lightroom Classic does not provide a good solution for replacing the sky. You could reduce the Exposure for the targeted adjustment to make the color more visible, but then you would not have any texture at all in the sky, which will likely not look very good.

In other words, if you need to replace the sky in a photo where the sky was completely blown out, you are better off working in Photoshop for that work rather than Lightroom.