Sometimes the perfect photo we click isn’t always that perfect. More often than not, the main problem that we all face is with the clouds. Either they’re too bright or they look too shabby. So Adobe thought of doing something about this common problem that all photographers face.
Project Sky Replace was first demonstrated at the Adobe MAX conference.
During the Adobe MAX Conference this year, they introduced something called Project Sky Replace. And it does exactly as its name intends. Basically, it replaces the sky in backgrounds of images with better quality skies sourced from other images, making the photo look just as the user wants it to be.
And it’s not just a copy paste function. It edits the foreground to match the user’s existing image and making it look as realistic as possible. The tool is pretty smart, knowing which parts of the image need to be preserved and which don’t. It can handle complex horizons and also match the shapes that are on the forefront of the picture.
How the tool does this is more complicated than its name suggests. The tool will gather information from the images to accurately match the composition and lighting. The technology will segment the foreground into different regions to match with the new background like architecture, people, grass and so on. This way, all the elements of the picture are taken into account so that there aren’t any funny colours popping up after the transfer.
But some scenes will pose challenging for the tool, like a water-body. Hence, reflections of the sky on top the water will be a little hard to emulate. The software will provide suggestions with other pictures to replace the sky background with. Although there aren’t many pictures for suggestions in their database just yet, Adobe will be updating it over time.
The tool is currently only limited to images and not video, however there was talk about the prospects of replacing the sky in video formats as well through a smart masking process. But that would require some heavy processing and also some more technological and software improvements. For now, it’ll benefit the aspiring photographers and movie-makers to make out-of-this-world posters and images.
There hasn’t been any release date for the tool yet, but it’s set to debut on Photoshop in a future version. The tool has been in development for a year and will be continuing production until the product is finished.
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