Better Sky

[signmark]

I design billboards using XaraX.
I use a digital photo of an existing board and put the proposed customers graphics on it.
My problem is that here in Oklahoma the air is usually thick and hazy. This makes the sky more of a hazy gray instead of blue.
I would like to replace the sky with a nicer (bluer) one. I can crop the sky out, but there is normally a tree line which makes for somewhat tedious node editing. Is there a way to select the sky with something like the magic wand tool, or select just a range of colors to replace?

Thanks for any help.

[signmark]

I design billboards using XaraX.
I use a digital photo of an existing board and put the proposed customers graphics on it.
My problem is that here in Oklahoma the air is usually thick and hazy. This makes the sky more of a hazy gray instead of blue.
I would like to replace the sky with a nicer (bluer) one. I can crop the sky out, but there is normally a tree line which makes for somewhat tedious node editing. Is there a way to select the sky with something like the magic wand tool, or select just a range of colors to replace?

Thanks for any help.

[Christine Farrelly]

Ther is no magic wand tool in Xara because it is a vector program not a bitmap editor. You could try laying a picture of a nice sky over the original and using the stained glass transparency or the other transparency types. The effects can be quite surprising.

Christine

[Christine Farrelly]

Original of that picture.

Christine

[gnurf]

But with a bit of imagination you can mask out the the sky in a photo and place a better looking sky under it. And at the moment I am writing I came up with a better way, but anyway, here's the first version a two part mini tutorial:

[gnurf]

Masking tutorial part 2

[Turan]

Wonderful - makes we wish I'd thought of it - but never would have http://www.talkgraphics.com/images/smilies/frown.gif.

Turan

[gnurf]

OK, here comes the improved masking tutorial (three parts)

[gnurf]

part2

Additional note: It may be a good idea to try bluring and sharpening on the different channel bitmaps as well, depending on the situation (ie sharpen could separate the sky from the horizon a little bit better, and bluring could smooth out unwanted dust spots).

[gnurf]

part 3