Sky replacement is sometimes used in landscape and perhaps architectural photography to replace a boring sky with one that’s more colourful or dramatic. AI sky replacement tools have made this easier with AI masking and blending that no longer requires manual skills, and ready-to-use replacement ‘skies’ in multiple categories from blue skies to stormy skies, night skies and sunsets.
It seems so harmless. AI sky replacement is not even in the same league as generative AI, since it just uses AI masking and blending techniques to add in a new sky that’s also perfectly real and did exist, just not here. It’s just made something easier that needed a bit of Photoshop skill before. But it does cast light on some important questions about facts, representations and motives.
Sky Swap AI is one of the big features in ON1 Photo RAW 2023, but ON1 has now split it out to also offer it as a standalone program and plug-in. You can open ON1 Sky Swap AI as an app, or launch it from Capture One, Affinity Photo, Corel Paintshop Pro, Apple Photos, Photoshop or Lightroom Classic.
The ON1 Photo RAW 2023.1 update is free to existing users and might just convince users of older versions that it’s time to upgrade. It also makes this software’s AI credentials that little bit more convincing for anyone weighing up ON1’s do-it-all photo editor against Skylum Luminar Neo.
Verdict: 3.3 stars Luminar Neo uses Skylum’s latest AI tech for results that can be spectacular, variable or, occasionally, somewhat pointless, though there’s no denying its ability to transform regular photos into more ‘idealized’ versions of reality. But its constant updates, complex bundles, extensions and paid add-ons don’t inspire a lot of confidence.
Very often in landscape photography you get the landscape or the lighting you want, but not the sky. In the perfect world you’d keep going back again and again until everything was perfect. In our not-so-perfect-world, however, it’s sometimes useful to be able to add a new sky later, as the final touch to an…