Below good article “Fast Sky Replacement” from Amateur Photographer. It also shows many examples using non-stock sky images for people who did not see any. This is clearly rather powerful tool which, when used properly, can produce excellent results (this statement applies to just about any photo software!).
Now, should DxO use their somewhat limited resources to go this path? I am not sure, it may or may not be where they want to go with their software. It really depends on how limited their resources are.
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True as in powerful tool but those examples showes also that for me as a amateur photographer it is a rather brut change of captured moment and over steps my feel of artistic freedom of enhancement.
- getting rid of disturbing objects? yes.
- changing WB/colors to my memory/liking? yes
- altering tonality/Dynamic Range of a image to see the details in shadow and highlight? yes
- blurring surroundings to point out a subject? yes
changing a hole image by adding a sky which wasn’t there?
hmm, only when the image is disturbed by a sky which wasn’t captured well but in reality was there recovery so to speak…
So no cloudy stormy sky’s wile it was a sunny quit day. (the flipover showes the problems, shadows and lightfall is too difficult to match on the ground.)
So if they make a tool to replace blown sky for a “blueisch realistic sky” we would see if we where out there in a second. YES PLEASE, much faster then what i did.
But pixelphotoshopping library of sky’s to make your own reality. No not for me, i like my memory alike the image and i am not selling the image so for that i need no improvement.
that’s my honest opinion others may think otherwise. That’s fine.
The difficulty for DxO, Mark, is that there are many conflicting opinions as to which outstanding feature is more important … such that it’s impossible to satisfy all expectations.
John M
That is correct, which is why I qualified my statement with “My opinion”. However, while I have no idea what DXO’s thinking is on this subject, I suspect that a feature to replace skies would not be a high priority for them. But, I’ve been wrong before.
Mark
hi OXi, I have had some fun and got three versions, the original with default preset, the natural pimped-up (*1) and a decent split toning (*2).
i never tried splittoning, never understood it’s purpose other then creative coloring.
mine looks processed, colors are “enhanced” yours looks like a “blue light moment” more natural kind of light. But my mind is telling me too blue in bushes and/or grass.
mine and your mid one.
mine starts to scream…
Hmm, i think i need a v3 of my processings version. less vibrance or less contrast/clearview.
And i think i need to read in on splittoning use.as i said i tried it , didn’t catch the use and left it.
split toning is the instagram filter basically. I think it’s necessary to create the warm/cold contrast in a good picture, if you were there at the wrong time of the day. The art in using it is the balance slider, I believe.
And actually you can do everything with using layers or local adjustments but it’s often a question of speed. Which one is faster, so that you have time for other things. And that’s why I think PL should finally offer a luminosity mask…
I am personally not in favour of a sky replacement tool. What I like about DxO, Capture One and LR Classic is that they provide me with the tools that I need so that I - and only I - decide how to use them to correct and enhance my photographs. All this AI that you can find in Luminar is the very reason why I personally don’t like Luminar.
There’s a market for each of us and for different kind of softwares, DxO is just not that software.
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