Tag Archives: Blue Skies in photos

Picasa Tip: Add Drama to your Skies with Graduated Tint

Evening SkyI took this picture at sunset time at our favorite RV park, Thousand Trails Peace River.  I love the beautiful, natural surroundings here.  I was particularly struck by the silhouette of the palm trees against the amber sky.  The sunset was creating a golden sky that night.  But, when I imported the picture to my computer, it didn’t even come close to the colors I experienced.  See the original below.  The colors are so drab, it looks like a black and white picture!  I swear that, what my eyes saw was a golden sky!

 

Recreate the Golden Sky with Graduated Tint

One of our (many) favorite features in Picasa is the Graduated tint tool.  You’ll find it on the 3d tab of editing tools – what used to be called ‘Effects.’  It is pre-set to make blue skies bluer, but you can choose different colors (like the golden sky) just by clicking on the color palette.

Blue sky before Graduated Tint

Graduated Tint, Sharpen

 Blue Sky after Graduated Tint, with default blue color
Graduated Tint, Sharpen
Sunset Sky before Graduated Tint

IMG_4221-001

 Sunset Sky after Graduated Tint, with chosen color
Evening Sky

If you are a Geeks on Tour member, you can watch these videos to learn more about exactly how this works.

  1. PIcasa’s 12 Effects
  2. *Add Color to Sky with Graduated Tint

*New!  Uploaded today – 12/14/12

Blue Skies with Graduated Tint

I’ve covered this feature before … but I don’t think I used a very good example in that article, so I’m going to revisit it.  We’ve recently traveled through Montana … you know the tagline right?  Big Sky Country.  We had beautiful weather with clear blue skies, but my pictures did not do the sky justice at all.  Here is a sample:

Before Graduated Tintimage After Graduated Tint
image

So, what is ‘Graduated Tint’?’  It’s on the Effects tab, and it has a few options.

image image

When you first click on Graduated Tint, it automatically applies a light blue color to the top half of your picture.  In the example above, I increased the Shade a bit to make the sky even bluer … withOUT making the clouds blue!  Just drag the ‘Shade’ slider to the right and watch the color deepen while it leaves the white areas alone.  Notice, you can also increase, or decrease the amount of the picture that is covered by dragging the crosshair (right on the picture) up or down. 

Here’s another example. 

Original photoimage I’m Feeling Lucky and Graduated Tintimage

I almost deleted that picture, it was so bland and washed out.  But after just a couple clicks, it is now one of my favorite road shots. 

Show-Me-How Videos on Picasa that apply to this article: