Sky replacement, reliable method?

[km.au]

Hi,

Is there are a way to do reliable sky replacement with Affinity Photo?

The refine selection and brushes works quite well with very, very simple objects, simple skies, simple buildings with contrast -  but doesn't really work when trees are involved.

Even something with a blown out white sky, I can't get a reliable result with refine selection and the tools provided.

Are there any tricks or luminosity type tricks people do to get good replacement with skies?

[IanSG]

I've found the brush size makes a difference to the way the refine selection works - in your example I'd start with a large brush and paint in all of the tree. You can also use a non-contiguous flood select, and try working with individual colour channels to see if you can get better contrast.  I haven't tried this myself, but maybe convert to black & white and then tweak the colour sliders to get the best contrast - once you've got your selection you can revert to colour.

[Sara72]

Hi,

Try using the Background Eraser Brush or Selection by Sample colour.

[Granddaddy]

Perhaps the following will be helpful:

A brief discussion from several months ago is at  https://forum.affinity.serif.com/index.php?/topic/72672-tree-selection-save-from-difficult-background/

Tutorials using Affinity:

   https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zdZ9H7eYWvo   [Affinity Photo] Removing background from Trees (Leaves selection) by Xyz Tutorials

   Hair selections are similar though most tutorials I've seen use distinctly different hair and background colors 

   http://iceflowstudios.com/2015/tutorials/creating-complex-selections-using-affinity-photo/

   https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DlmA1qicXN0  [Affinity Photo] Remove Background from a Complex image by Xyz Tutorials

   https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JUsxghAYrlA    How to remove tree background in affinity photo   Non-English

Tutorials using Photoshop that might be adaptable for Affinity Photo:

   https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZZZRKgiWy4c

   http://www.pxleyes.com/tutorial/photoshop/1272/How-To-Mask-A-Tree-In-3-Minutes.html