Editing the sky in a landscape image is a critical skill for creating a compelling final product. However, many photographers, especially beginners, struggle with over-processing the sky, making it appear unnatural and detracting from the overall image. This helpful video tutorial will show you six common mistakes and how to improve your sky edits.

Coming to you from Andrea Livieri, this great video addresses six common mistakes made when editing skies and provides solutions for each. One major mistake is over-saturating the sky, which can make the colors look unrealistic and overwhelming. The solution lies in making subtle adjustments and using selection masks to target the sky specifically. Another mistake is incorrect white balance adjustment, which can lead to a loss of color depth and definition. The video also tackles the issue of poor mask transitions between the sky and other elements in the landscape. Using tools like AI sky selection in conjunction with gradient tools can create more natural transitions that aren’t glaringly obvious.

Contrast control is another area where many go wrong. Excessive clarity and contrast can make the sky appear over-processed and unnatural. The video recommends a more measured approach — hesitant almost. Additionally, noise in the sky is a common problem, often caused by default sharpening settings in editing software. Livieri suggests adjusting the masking value in the sharpening settings to exclude the sky and selectively applying noise reduction only to the sky area. Check out the video above for the full rundown from Livieri.