White Sky Photoshop Tutorial

I really like how this icy tree in my backyard turned out against the white sky. I thought I would share with you how I made this happen. Because remember… I’m not a great photographer and have an old Canon point and shoot camera… I just know how to do tricks:-)

Here it is straight from the camera. It was raining and turning into ice on the trees. I was fascinated with how white the sky looked. But the photo I took did not capture what it really looked like in person. Mmmm, probably because I didn’t even go outside. This was shot through a very dirty window from upstairs! ha.

First, cropped some of the bottom limbs out of the photo. I then opened Levels and moved the far right Input Levels slider toward the black until the gray was gone from the sky. This turned the entire sky white which I loved, but the tree was still kind of bla.

To make the tree pop. I used the Pioneer Woman’s Define and Sharpen Action. (these actions are free) I could have probably done this well enough by sharpening it myself, but the actions are super easy. I did end up sharpening it a little more to my taste.

I then opened Levels again and clicked on the Set Black Point dropper. I found a light gray part of the tree and hit the dropper on that point, this then made the tree all black and much more dramatic.

I then deleted a branch that was bugging me in the bottom right corner and voila!

I think it looks like a vector image now and would make a great background image for note cards or stationary. Stay tuned to see what I do with it!

***Don’t have Photoshop? Then try the online version here.

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Originally published on January 9, 2009. Last Updated on May 15, 2021 by Amy Locurto

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