Why does the sky look greenish at noon, and how can I improve it?
Asked 11/3/2010
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I photographed people at high noon using a polarizing filter. The skin tones look fine after post-processing, but the sky near the horizon looks dull/greenish instead of a clean blue. Why does this happen, and is there a good way to improve the sky in camera or in post?
Originally by Photography Stack Exchange contributor. Source · Licensed CC BY-SA 4.0
Photography Stack Exchange contributor
15y ago
2 Answers
7
Under Rayleigh scattering the sky will look greener and then yellower the closer you get to the sun, however with the sun high in the sky I don't think that's what is happening here. I think pollution is a more likely cause, especially as it seems to exist close to the horizon. Filters (polarizing/UV) may make the sky a darker, richer tone, I'm not sure they would change the hue, though I suggest you try filtering if you have one to hand.
The white balance in the images is fairly warm, which looks good for the skintones but will always give a yellower sky than a cool balance. To maintain the skintones you can always adjust the hue of just the sky by a selective colouring tool in post, or boost the saturation of the blue primary in raw conversion.
Hope you don't mind me editing and reposting the images, but here's the original first image, cooled down slightly:

And here's the original image with just the cyan tones shifted toward the magenta end of the spectrum in Photoshop:

And finally just to show you how far you can go with selective colour adjustments, here's the original image cooled down with the sky shifted and the grass made to look a little bit more alive!

Finally, the second image seems to display lens flare on the right hand side, is it a crop from a larger image? If not I don't know where the flare is coming from as you're not shooting that close to the sun. edit It's probably just something white floating close to the lens, thus totally out of focus.
Originally by user1375. Source · Licensed CC BY-SA 4.0
user1375
15y ago
0
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At high noon, the sky near the horizon often looks less blue and more gray/yellow-green than the sky higher up. A polarizer won’t help much there, because its strongest effect is roughly 90° from the sun; with the sun nearly overhead, the horizon area is at a weak angle for polarization.
A warm white balance can also make the sky look more yellow/green even if it keeps skin tones pleasing. Pollution or haze near the horizon can add to the problem.
What to do:
- Don’t expect much sky deepening from a polarizer when shooting toward the horizon at midday.
- If possible, shoot when the sun is lower or compose more of the sky farther from the horizon.
- In post, keep the skin tones as you like, then selectively adjust only the sky: cool its white balance, shift hue toward blue, or increase blue saturation.
So the main causes are likely the shooting angle relative to the sun, warm processing for skin tones, and possibly haze/pollution near the horizon.
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