Making Skies dramatic in GIMP
An easy way to make ordinary white cloud on blue skies into dramatic significant parts of your photographs. This is a very simple trick to do in GIMP and the results are great!
Dramatic Skies in GIMP
1. Starting
- Open your image up in GIMP – preferably with plenty of sky!
- Duplicate your Background Layer (set to multiply):
- And go, Colors –> Components –> Channel Mixer:
Colors --> Components --> Channel Mixer
2. Channel Mixer
- To make your sky really dramatic with dark blue sky you need to really experiment here!
- Firstly, select Monochrome, leave preserve luminosity unchecked:
- In most cases moving the RED Channel to 200 will be fine, but if you have a mixture of colours than you will have to experiment a little:
- The GREEN Channel will sit in between the Red and blue channels, and can be used to increase brightness if your image is lacking red.
- The BLUE Channel is the most important here, decreasing the blue channel will make those dramatic dark skies, so keep this low as possible:
- At the end set the blending mode to Multiply:
- My image could be very different to yours and the settings will vary so you need to play around a bit to achieve that desirable effect:
Channel Mixer - Monochrome: 200, -25, -75
3.a. Gradient Map – Black & White
- A Gradient Map will increase contrast and better define the clouds from the dark blue sky.
- Duplicate your original layer
- Make sure your FG is Black and BG is White:
- Go, Colors –> Map –> Gradient Map:
- And set that layer to Overlay:
Gradient Map - Colors --> Map --> Gradient Map
4. Adjusting Levels – White
- To make your clouds perfect white go, Colors –> Levels:
- Now, select the WHITE Selector (pipette) and click on the whitest part of your clouds:
Adjusting Levels - Colors --> Levels
Here is the BEFORE and AFTER shot:
Before/After - Dramatic Skies in GIMP
That’s It!
If you get stuck anywhere just comment below!
If you’d like to use these photographs please Contact Me! 
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Please comment below if you have any questions and I’ll answer them ASAP!
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Written by Mike
Michael Scott is the publisher and photographer behind Scott Photographics! He is very passionate about his photography and enjoys sharing the best of his experiences for others to enjoy too! Contact Mike via email!
Hi Paz,
I think replacing a sky with another is possibly the best option, as it comes a bit time consuming creating clouds.
Here are a few links for replacing skies in GIMP:
http://www.digital-photography-school.com/how-to-replace-a-sky-in-gimp
http://www.ephotozine.com/article/change-the-sky-using-gimp-9682
Good Luck!
Mike
Hi, Mike — Thanks for the tutorial. I’m often working with images that have a washed-out sky and would like to learn how to select just the sky and change it from just a near-white, washed-out, cloudless thing into a more rich-blue “classic” with some fleecy white stuff. Is that possible? I suspect I need to learn about working with channels… Thanks in advance.
Thanks Leslie:)
Hi Michael, thank you so much for your wonderful tutorials. I shared the one for watermarks on G+. Wondering…are you on there? I’d love to connect with you, if you are. Thanks again! They are great!
Hi Ken,
You may experience your colour being drained if you don’t set the Gradient Map layer to mode: Overlay – you might like to experiment with the opacity of the layers to find the right look!
Comment below if you are still having troubles.
Cheers,
Mike
When I follow this tutorial, most of the colour is drained from my image. I am assuming I should have a new layer for each step and the blending mode is as described.
Thanks.
Hi Jacob,
you are right in some cases, however HDR has become more of a surreal image manipulation recently. It is intended to create a better/realistic image by combining the different lit shots – that a camera can only capture with multiple photographs – unlike our eyes which are constantly adjusting and scanning with to varying conditions.
So, I wouldn’t discount ‘dynamic range’ images, as you can have a whole spectrum of results.
Thanks,
Michael
Nice, simple. I never understood what “dynamic range” really is. People talk about how you have to have a special kind of camera or image program to gain HDR images, but if it could be done in GIMP, I’m not really all that impressed. Don’t get me wrong, I love GIMP, but dynamic images just seem like another simple image manipulation that people are over hyping.
Thanks! Nice, simple, effective.