The beginning of this week brought some really amazing colors to the sky. Remember my garden’s recent invasion of the dark pink-purple mums? Well, early this week, they saw a sunrise that matched them perfectly. (I should say they would match if it were October and the mums weren’t frozen yet.)

I peeked out the window again before lunch, and this is what I saw.

The sunset later that day wasn’t half bad, either.

Almost looks like a wildfire, doesn’t it?

Much as I’m a warm climate lover, I’ll say this about winter skies: they’re almost never boring.

Oh, and mom, before you worry about your only daughter making it a habit to hang outside her window in all sorts of precarious positions to get these shots, please be reassured that these pictures don’t always require some level of balance or acrobatic skill. Which I’m sure you’ll be glad to hear, since I posses neither.

Case in point: that sunset photo above. This is where I was when I took it.

See? I wouldn’t lie to you, would I?

And before you start worrying about a whole new set of things, no the car wasn’t moving. That was a parking lot, and all those other cars there weren’t moving either. I wouldn’t risk my life by attempting to dodge traffic knowing full well I have no talent for crossing streets safely.

Just … don’t ask me if I sometimes take pictures while driving. Trust me, you don’t want to know.

The recent epidemic of absolutely beautiful skies made me think of all those times I shot pictures of what I thought were interesting skyscapes, only to load them up on the computer and be disappointed at how boring and dull they looked on the screen. Let’s face it – how many of us interested amateurs with point-and-shoot cameras walk around with a Neutral Density Gradient filter in our bags?

Enter Scott Kelby with a quick fix for toning skies.

What I learned at the CS3 Power Tour:

6. Mimicking the effect of using a Neutral Density Gradient filter is a simple three step process.

Okay, I think it was technically five steps. But it really felt like just three.

So I was going through some of my older photo folders and found my stash of Maui pictures. One picture particularly caught my eye, and I wondered why I never worked on it. Then I looked at it full size and remembered why – the sky just looked blah to me, not like the clean blue that I remembered.

Enter Photoshop and the gradient fill layer. Make the skies ever so slightly bluer without touching the foreground, and now I have the picture I want.*

And just for kicks, I threw in a Portraiture filter to mix things up a little. I’m all about mixing, you know. That’s ’cause here at The Ivory Hut, we’re equal opportunity filter users.

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*If you’re really interested in the process, here you go:

1. Create an adjustment layer (choose Gradient) and make sure your foreground color is black.
2. Pick the second gradient (from medium gray to transparent) and make sure the dark area of the gradient is in the right position. Hit reverse to position it over the sky, or even change the angle if that’s what works best for the photo.
3. Change the layer blend mode to Overlay, and then go back to the gradient fill dialog to tweak the settings. To do this, double-click on the gradient adjustment layer thumbnail in your layers palette.
4. Click on the gradient thumbnail in the dialog to bring up the gradient editor, and move the sliders so that the gradient stops where it’s supposed to stop. Done!

Okay, so those are four steps. I can always make up a fifth one, or remove one to make it three. But then that’d just be more work for me, and you know me. I’m all about avoiding work. That’s ’cause here at The Ivory Hut, we’re minimal opportunity brain cell users.