**Having trouble with sizing my images for best color for wordpress. Forgive some of the poor color quality. I will figure this out ASAP!**

Since it’s cold and cloudy today, I naturally started thinking about sweet summer time. I miss the warmth and the sand between my toes. I  also really miss summer sessions!! <3 Below are a few of my faves.

For a lot of the beach sessions I had this past summer, I added an image (or more)  in my clients bunch that had a more dramatic touch — using what’s called a ‘cloud overlay’ — I don’t like to use these with every photo, because they are a bit more dramatic than my norm, but there are some images that just speak to me ;).. and I like to spice them up with one of these fancy overlays and a little heavier/more dramatic editing!

 

 

Want to know how I did it? Read on, my friend!

To begin you need  the actual overlay. I purchased some from Oh So Posh Photography. The clouds above are from her Texas sky edition.

With her overlays she provides actions to shorten the process, but incase you have a free set, or a set that doesn’t include actions, this is how you would go about it in PS:

Now that you have your overlay, you’ll need to choose and image to place it on!

Open the image you want the cloud overlay on, and then go to ‘file’ & ‘place’ … you’ll want to place the overlay file over your image where the sky line is. I always do it just a little below the line to give me some wiggle room. If you need to stretch the over lay I hold down ‘shift’ and pull the corners.

You can double click to place or right click and select the option.

You can lower the opacity to taste.

Once it is on, you’ll need to create a layer mask.

After you’ve created a layer mask, select a black brush (black conceals, white reveals)

You’ll brush the sky off of anything that is above the horizon line (like the weeds in the photo above) also any part of the overlay that is below the horizon line.

Ta-da 😉

 

The photo on the left is SOOC (straight out of camera) — with some adjustments it would have been fabulous without the clouds. But, I think the clouds and a little dramatic edit transformed it into art 🙂

Love it. And you.

XO