What is this sky defect and what is the best way to deal with it?

[gfbugaboo]

It's a washed out, cloudy sky to begin with:

The foreground, which I've omitted, contains waves and rocks that look much better after highlighting the photo, but that also highlights the defect in the sky:

What is this called, and what is the best way to fix it? I used the lasso tool to select the sky, followed by inversing the selection and applying highlighting, which worked fairly well (although I can never get the edges precise with the lasso, so imperfections remain where the sky meets water or rocks), but then I realized that I needed to deal with the original defect before doing any other editing. So what is the best way to do that?

[Greg_S.]

I would consider this a "blown out" hazy sky that can be improved with the Haze removal tool that is available in Elements 2019 or 2020.  Actually, there is very little sky in the photo.  Most of the milky white area appears to be land that cannot be seen through the haze.  Here is what the haze removal tool does, when taken to its limits:

If you are using an earlier version of Elements, I would try the File>Open in Camera Raw option.  This opens a jpg file in the Adobe Camera Raw editor.  A simple click on the Auto button produces the following result:

It's not exactly clear from your post what effect you want to achieve and by giving us a cropped photo, there is not much resolution to play with. 

If you want to select just the white area, it is far easier to use the Magic Wand selection tool than the lasso tool.  You can adjust the tolerance of the tool to get a better selection.  In the following examples, a tolerance of 19 selects the entire white area above the water.  A tolerance of 6 selects just the lightest area at the top of the photo.  (I clicked in the top right of the image because that appeared to be the lightest tone.)

You could replace either selection with a blue or cloudy sky if that is what you want to do.

In short, there are many ways to skin this cat.  I'm sure others will have different suggestions.  But it would be helpful if you gave us a better idea of what you are hoping to achieve.  It would also be helpful to attach the original image to a post which would likely give us more detail to work with.

[gfbugaboo]

I'll try to clarify the issue. Here are before and after again:

Looking at the After picture, you can see that where the arrow begins, the sky (no land there, just fog) is one shade of gray, but where the arrowhead ends up, the sky is a darker shade of gray. In the unedited photo on the left, the sky is also two shades of gray, but you can barely notice it; highlighting brings it out and draws attention to it. Besides help fixing it, I wanted to know what this is called. The Haze Removal tool intoduces a similar distortion, as does the Auto in Camera Raw. I don't mind the sky being blown out in this photo; I just don't want attention drawn to it, which those multiple shades brings. I'm thinking that maybe cloning the top section of the sky into the bottom section is the way to go?

P.S. Anyone know why I might not be getting e-mail alerts when someone replies to my postings, even though I've checked off the "Email me when someone replies" box?

[99jon]

I would suggest opening in camera raw and pushing the highlights slider all the way to the left. Then click the "Open Image" button to get back into the regular editor.

You could also push shadows & clarity to the right but be careful with clarity not to introduce artefacts.

[hatstead]

I suggest that you obtain a picture of a "good" sky. You can take it yourself, or obtain one via Google Images. We want a sky picture with clouds. Then, try the following:

1. Open your picture file
2. Open a Hue/Saturation adjustment layer above the background layer. In the dialog that opens, check the colorize box and work the 3 sliders to enhance the water. This will make a global change to the picture, but not to worry.
3. Open a blank layer at the top, and press CTRL+SHIFT+ALT+E to obtain a stamp visible layer, incorporating the layers below.
4. Open you newly obtained sky picture, go to Select>all, then Edit>copy to put it on the the clipboard
5. Go back your original picture, then Edit>paste. The new sky will come in on a separate layer
6. Activate the move tool, and adjust the replacement sky over the original blown out sky with the corner and side handles. In the Layers palette, set the blending mode of the replacement sky to darken. Be sure that you are on the corrct layer!
7. Set the foreground color chip to white
8. Activate the Gradient tool, and select the foreground to transparent (linear) gradient. While holding down rhe shift key, drag the gradient from below to just below the top of the picture.

[Greg_S.]

gfbugaboo said:

I don't mind the sky being blown out in this photo; I just don't want attention drawn to it, which those multiple shades brings. I'm thinking that maybe cloning the top section of the sky into the bottom section is the way to go?

I agree that the cloning tool would probably be the easiest remedy to equalize the shades (either top to bottom or vice versa). 

gfbugaboo said:

P.S. Anyone know why I might not be getting e-mail alerts when someone replies to my postings, even though I've checked off the "Email me when someone replies" box?

Aside from checking off the box when you created the original post, have you checked off the boxes in your Account Settings?  (Click on your avatar in the top right of the web page to access them.)

[gfbugaboo]

I checked. Yes, those settings are all selected. And I did receive a notification that you posted this; I hadn't been notified of any of the previous replies (and I did check my spam folder too!). So I don't know what's going on, but it's just a minor annoyance. Thanks for the suggestion.  

[gfbugaboo · Accepted solution]

I ended up using the Magic Wand to select the area, as Greg S. suggested. I added feathering to the selection, selected a point in the sky with the Dropper, and used the Paint Bucket tool to make the sky a single color. Then I added highlighting to the whole photo. This was the result:

Which is pretty much what I wanted. (Not sure why the rock in the background has such sharp edges, but I'm not going to obsess over it.) Thanks for all the help.

[Greg_S.]

If you don't mind me making a suggestion, I would straighten the horizon (and Autofill the edges).

[gfbugaboo]

Good suggestions. I didn't notice the tilt, but just took another look at the photo and it's pretty obvious (although it could just be my attempt to prove that the world is round?). Thanks.