How to Select a Sky in Lightroom

Lightroom Tutorials  •  Photo Editing  •  Photography Tips

This step-by-step guide will teach you how to use the Select Sky tool in Adobe Lightroom.

I think you will agree with me when I say it’s hard to quickly select the sky.

Well, it turns out you can select a sky Precisely and quickly using the latest Lightroom tools.

Let us dive right in –

Sky Selection tool in Lightroom

• Under the Lightroom develop module, select the masking option.

• Click on the Select Sky icon under the option Masking > Add New Mask
• Mask Panel will appear. You can see the Sky in the image selected. Check the Show Overlay checkbox to see which area of the Sky is selected.

• You have made the initial Sky selection. You can use this Sky Selection as a good starting point. Apply the targeted adjustments for a selected Sky.

Optional steps to refine a sky selections

• Once you make the initial Sky selection, under the Mask panel click on the selected mask.
• Below the Mask, there are 2 options- Add and Subtract
• For adding more areas to the Sky selection, click on Add.
• There are multiple options to Add to the current selection.
• The brush option is helpful in extending the selections. Select the brush option and paint over the area you want to select.

• To subtract from the selection, select the Subtract option. Select the brush and paint over the area which you don’t want in the selection.

• Out of multiple selection options, I find Brush option to be helpful in adding or subtracting to the Sky selection.
• If your Sky selection demands for additional selection options feel free to give a try. It’s worth it.

Visualizing the overlay

• You can visualize the selected Sky using various overlay modes.
• To visualize the selection, under the Mask check the Show overlay box.
• You can see a default overlay as Color Overlay. Now you can choose a different color for overlay. Click on the color palette and select the color of the overlay.

• Also, there are other overlay modes available. I Choose color overlay or Color Overlay on B & W as I find those overlays easy to refine the Skyselections. You can choose which you find useful for your images.

Bonus tip to quickly make the image beautiful:

• Select the Sky as mentioned in the above steps. Use the Select Sky feature for selecting the Sky.
• Make Targeted adjustments to the Sky. Specifically targeted adjustments I recommend are – Black and White point, Highlight/ Shadows, Vibrance and Saturation, Clarity, Texture, Sharpness, and White Balance. Every image is different hence you can apply targeted adjustments as per the image requirement.
• The Key Idea here is, to create a beautiful sky that compliments your main subject. Increase the impact of the Main subject by gently optimizing the sky.

Now it’s your turn

I hope this Lightroom tool will help you to select and edit the Sky faster and accurately.

About the Author:
Shreyas S. Yadav is an engineer and photographer of wildlife and nature. He is also a writer and lifelong adventure explorer. Through his writings, he teaches about digital post-processing and nature photography. Shreyas shares field techniques about nature photography, post-processing and wildlife photo stories on his website.