How can I fix an overexposed sky in post-processing from a RAW file?

Asked 5/23/2011

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I’m new to photography and have some RAW images where the foreground looks correctly exposed, but the sky is too bright. What can I realistically recover in post-processing, and what should I do if the sky is completely blown out?

sky post-processing highlights raw exposure

Originally by Photography Stack Exchange contributor. Source · Licensed CC BY-SA 4.0

Photography Stack Exchange contributor

15y ago

2 Answers

If you shot that image in RAW, you can try to recover some detail using Photoshop, or better yet your camera's native RAW converter.

If the sky is suppoed to be pure blue, you can just do a color replace in photoshop and apply blue, or duplicated the layer, apply blue filter to it, and erase everything else but the sky to show the original image below.

If all else fails, convert the image to B/W.

Originally by user4246. Source · Licensed CC BY-SA 4.0

user4246

15y ago

AI Answer

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It depends on how much detail is still in the sky.

If you shot RAW, start in a RAW editor and try highlight recovery/recovery controls, then adjust highlights and overall levels or local exposure. If the sky is only somewhat overexposed, this can often bring back usable detail.

If the sky is completely blown out to pure white, there usually isn’t any real detail left to recover. In that case, your practical options are:

replace or recolor the sky in an editor,
create a composite using another frame with a properly exposed sky,
or convert the image to black and white if that suits the shot.

So the best workflow is: check clipping/highlight warnings, try RAW highlight recovery first, then local adjustments. If there’s no data left, editing can only fake or replace the sky, not truly restore it.

How can I fix an overexposed sky in post-processing from a RAW file?

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