Another approach I’ve found works well is to do 3 quick steps when selecting the sky: 1. Select sky 2. Subtract sky 3. Invert Sounds odd but for some reason the sky select and subtract impacts slightly different pixels along the edge and when you then invert you end up with a much cleaner sky selection. Sounds weird but give it a try. Attribution- not my discovery, I first saw Brian Matiash show it on his channel.
This is such a common problem that Adobe should design a new Halo Brush that simply brushes away any edge glow. So easy and obvious! You also want to be careful with adding clarity as that can create problems as well. Which could also be an Adobe fix.
A technique i use frequently is to brush negative clarity and sometimes negative sharpness with a large feather over the sky/foreground boundary - it can help ease the transition area. No viewer will notice the insignificant loss in perceived sharpness. I'll often combine this with a luminance mask selecting the highlights with further negative clarity, which can help "bloom" the sky light onto the foreground a bit, further obscuring any halo.
I’ll have to try this. To date, I’ve dealt with the issue by doing the sky selection twice before making modifications. That greatly refines the edge of the selection from the first pass.
No one is going to notice the darkened trees? (~<a href="#" class="seekto" data-time="583">9:43</a>) Work with real estate agents and homeowners much? LOL I'm being facetious, but you'd be surprised what these people pick up on. I'm going to use your second technique on my next RE shoot and see what happens. I always enjoy your content, Matt. Thank you for always sharing!
OMG, post processing is getting so involved and complicated and takes me so much more time. Masks, Gen AI, external sharpening tools, DeNoise plug-ins. I’m loving every (extra) minute of it!! Thanks for these tips and techniques that help me do it better.
Interesting. As with many things in PS, there are many ways to get the same or similar result. Up till now, I've gotten good very results in eliminating halos by using the clone tool, sampling from the appropriate part of the image, and using the darken or lighten blend setting as appropriate.
To avoid the issue, I do the opposite to the mask by making the sky lighter towards the horizon. I use a graduated mask for the sky area, so the darker effect is 100% applied to the top part of the sky and it is maybe around 25% at the bottom, therefore voiding the halo that can appear.
Part of the problem with masking in new skies is that photographers in editing are not observant to the fact that to attain a natural look the light from the sky rebounds off the ground which results in a gentle lightening gradation flowing above the horizon line at the ground. Then if any elimination of fringing is necessary you can go into Photoshop and use an added empty layer that is set at darken mode to use the eye dropper to select the sky tone and use the brush tool to paste that color over the white fringe. Set the brush at a small size with reduced flow. The fringing will disappear.
Hey , how come you have turned off the comments on your latest masking tip video? I wanted to expand on a cool feature of your first tip (adding colour to a masked area). Thanks
My technique: Step 1. Complete your processing workflow, save and resize the image to final. Step 2. Create a layer in Photoshop and change the layer designation from 'normal' to 'darken' in the drop box in the layer window Step 3. Select the clone stamp tool and set it to around 15 px and 0% hardness Step 4. Enlarge the image to 300-400% Step 5. Position the clone stamp on the background adjacent to the halo, hold down the alt button and click the left mouse button, release then re position the clone stamp over the halo Step 6. Left click the mouse button and holding it down drag the clone stamp over the halo and watch it disappear Step 7. Continue this technique until the halo has been removed or reduced to an acceptable level
Was the problem made worse by the initial, global increase of Exposure on the photo? Would it be better to use selections to change the exposures on the sky versus the foreground? Second question: would the select sky intersect with select sky technique work equally well on the complete selection of the sky without any darkening of the background? Thanks for your great teaching and wonderful knowledge of Adobe products.
Question: why did you bring down Exposure instead of Highlights? To my eyes, I see much better results in skys by bringing down Highlights, but maybe I'm missing something.
Thank Matt for this INFORMATIVE video. One question, please. I have looked at the information of "Simple to Stunning" course on your site. My question is Do you use Lightroom & Photoshop 2024 for all the steps in this training whenever possible? I know when you use AI features they will be from the latest version but how about other things like Selection feature. I have seen so many tutorials from other people who use old version of Lightroom & Photoshop. They are a waste of time to me because I have to spend time to figure out on my own how to use the new tools that are much more efficient. I know just basic Lightroom & Photoshop. Thank you very much for your time.
I've always wanted to understand the programming logic/challenge that causes these halos. Is the fringing present before the masking, but the exposure adjustment makes it more visible? If not, why does it suddenly appear? And whatever the cause may be, my simplistic view is that the fix is just a case of the application determining whether the pixels affected are part of the sky or the subject and adjusting them accordingly. If that's not possible, wouldn't the recently introduced generative fill be one option for automatically removing the halo?
Hi. It appears as a result of a contrast between foreground and sky because natural light wraps around trees and other edges. But when you to make a perfect selection around something that is imperfect you get them and it’s usually from doing something unnatural to the photo. Best way to avoid them is to not make an adjustment that reveals them in the first place. In short it’s not really a programming error and in my opinion is more of the person editing error. Thx
