How To Replace A Sky With Luminar Sky AI

Sky Selection

Firstly, opening the Sky AI panel you immediately see a pull-down menu and four sliders. The first thing to note is that Luminar automatically detects whether the image you are editing, has any sky portions. If it doesn’t, then the panel options will not be available to you.

The first option that is available to you in Sky AI, is a pull-down menu of available sky replacements.

This brings up a scrollable menu with all the skies installed within your Luminar library. You get skies provided as standard, and you can download additional sky packs from Luminar. You can also load your own sky images in. As a personal note, I would encourage people to use their own skies. The ones from Luminar are great, but they tend to get used a lot.

For most images, you merely have to select the sky you want to use by selecting, then bingo Sky AI does the rest for you. Luminar replaces the image and harmonizes the color between the two merged images to make sure they match. But, if you do want more creative control over the options, and/or if Luminar does not quite give you the effect that you want, you do have additional controls to take your image to the next level!

Orientation

Horizon Blending: Smooths the transition between the current horizon and the new one. When you replace the sky in an image, it is worth taking a close look at the horizon transitions. This is particularly the case with hard lines such as between the ocean and the sky. 

Vertical & Horizontal Offset: This allows you to fine-tune the alignment of the horizon of the original photo with the new sky’s horizon.

Rotation: Enables you to rotate the new sky.

Flip:  As its name suggests, this option flips the new sky texture in the horizontal plane. This is another option that is particularly useful if you need to match the direction of light in the merged images.

Mask Refinement

Global: The Sky AI Replacement could more correctly be described as a blend between the original and new sky rather than a replacement. Because what Sky AI actually does is blend the new sky over the old sky. This slider allows you to manually control the intensity of the blend.

Close Gaps: This slider allows you to manually fix any small details or holes that Luminar has not fixed automatically. It is particularly useful in small details such as leaves on trees.

Fix Details: This slider enables you to fix any small imperfections around the transition points between the new sky and the original picture.

Scene Relighting

Relight Strength: Luminar automatically relights the merged photo to harmonize the colors between the foreground and background. This slider allows you to manually adjust the intensity of the relighting effect.

Relight Saturation: Changes the vibrance level of the new blended scene.

Relight Human: Adjusts the lighting harmonization on any human subjects in the scene.

Reflection

Reflection Amount: The Reflection Amount slider adjusts the intensity of any reflections in water bodies in your image. This helps to more naturally blend the new sky with your original image.

Sky Adjustments

Defocus: This slider is particularly useful if for example the background in your original image was blurred, and you want to mimic the same amount of blur to better harmonize your image.

Grain: This allows you to match the granularity between the original image and the blended sky.

Atmospheric Haze: This slider adds a soft haze to the sky and is another useful option for harmonization with the original image.

Warmth: This slider increases or decreases the temperature of the new sky, and again is useful for harmonization.

Brightness: This option controls the exposure for the new sky so that you can balance the contrast between the sky and ground portions.