Separate foreground from sky and add adjustmentlayers to sky only

[IvashistaI]

Hi,

I am processing a complicated scene where there is lot of light in the foreground and to some extent in background (sky). It is long exposure sinlgle shot night sky photo. I want to separate foreground (mostly tress) from the scene and add adjustment layers only to sky (or background). How do we do this in affinity photo 2 ? Bascically I want to apply a mask which do not alter foreground (trees) and only affects the sky. 

[NotMyFault]

It totally depends on the actual image.

 Bunch of possible methods:

• Use luminosity range mask (or blend range)
• Use selection by color
• Use selection brushes
• pre-process copy of image with tone map persona, sharpening HSL, or other filters to enhance contrast
• use channels panel to find color channel with best contrast
• For nightskies always take multiple exposures with tripod. The background will stay mostly unchanged, the sky will change between images. Can be used with stacks to create masks
• Try converting to LAB/16 (for masking only)

If you can upload the file we can check what works best. We need best possible quality, RAW or TIFF/16

[IvashistaI]

Thanks for the informaSWE_2382.TIFtion. I am a begginer I will try these as well. But, here is the image you asked. let me know what you think.  

[Old Bruce]

8 minutes ago, IvashistaI said:

I am a begginer I will try these as well. But, here is the image you asked. let me know what you think.  

This photo is an excellent candidate for the Hue Range Mask.

[Granddaddy]

There are many tutorials about selecting/replacing/adjusting skies and other backgrounds. For links to some tutorials, see my posts at

https://forum.affinity.serif.com/index.php?/topic/143743-remove-background/&do=findComment&comment=798313

https://forum.affinity.serif.com/index.php?/topic/143743-remove-background/&do=findComment&comment=798819