Blue Skies And Clouds

Whenever I see nice blue skies and some interesting clouds, I like to go out with the camera and try to capture some shots. I usually look for an isolated subject since I'm just on my patio and my house and the trees block any real wide shots. I got 2 shots that day.

This shot was with my Fujifilm X-T3 + Fujinon XF55-200mm. This is out of camera raw with Lightroom presets (Adobe Color):

Both of these pictures are 4x5 crop. I was underexposed so I increase by 3/4 of a stop. This one, because it's a lone soft cloud, I could crank the clarity to 100. Texture was bumped just a bit though. HSL, this is important for sky/clouds. Especially for blue skies like these pictures, you should desaturate the purple and magenta all the way down. For the hue, this is where you can have fun with the color of your blue.

There's also the blue in the Calibration panel. I increased the saturation there. In this case, because there's only white and blue, it doesn't change much so I could've just changed it in the HSL.

For clouds, I like using a brush and brushing over everything. I then use the luminance mask and target only the highlights. From there you can increase exposure, clarity, and texture. I just used exposure in this case. If you ever get weird overexposed white/gray spots, try decreasing the whites.

I placed 2 gradient filters in the top right corner and bottom left corner. The top right has more dehazed than the bottom left since it was naturally softer anyway.

78mm 1/60sec F/13 ISO160

I found this cloud interesting because of its straight-line and clear sky beside it.

Very similar edit with this one. The cloud was in a different spot in the sky and my shutter speed was quicker which makes the blue darker. I placed a gradient filter as well to soften the blue. Often color grading doesn't work well as it affects too many parts of the image so I didn't use some here.

74mm 1/250sec F/13 ISO160

Now I know these aren't going to win any awards but it's something that interests me so I have to try. This is completely different from landscape photography. Especially the editing, it's not easy. I like to associate emotions with my picture. But, I think if I persist, I will get better or I'll realize it's not something for me. The only way to find those answers is by trying multiple times.