Real Clouds to Paint From

Know the cloud you are painting

Clouds form at different heights, and each height has its own look. High clouds such as cirrus are made of ice crystals, so they are thin, wispy and bright. Mid-level clouds such as altocumulus form rows of small rounded patches. Low clouds such as stratocumulus spread in grey sheets with breaks. Storm clouds grow tall, dark and heavy. If you mix these without a reason, the sky will feel false even to viewers who know nothing about weather.

The Blue Skies pack by Andrii Vasyliev has 587 photos, including cirrus, cirrocumulus and altocumulus clouds. A city skyline sits along the bottom of many frames, which shows how the clouds light and shade the ground.

Clouds from above

From a plane, clouds become a landscape of their own.

• Stratocumulus Clouds: 205 photos of a cloud sheet stretching over hundreds of square kilometres of New Zealand, with breaks where the land shows through. It includes sunrise photos and costs $4.99.
• Misty Layered Aerial Clouds: 143 photos taken from a plane, mostly in early morning, with layers of cloud blocking the sun and casting very long shadows.

These are useful for flight scenes, fantasy sky islands and high mountain views.

Storms and heavy skies

• Skies and Clouds: 439 photos from Finland in 4 folders: 61 blue sky, 204 heavy clouds, 95 stormy sky and 79 sunset sky. It includes panoramas up to 180 degrees and 28,000 pixels wide, with the frames used to build them.
• Stormy Clouds: 202 photos of storm skies over a city, so you can see how a storm darkens buildings and streets.

Evening and sunset light

At the end of the day, sunlight passes through more air and turns warm. Clouds catch this light on their undersides while the sky above stays cool. Epic Sunsets (396 photos) and Epic Evening Skies (200 photos) show this warm evening light over a city in Ukraine.

The Vibrant Skies and Clouds pack (400 photos, Finland) is the best of several years of sky photography by AVahur, mostly at 42 megapixels, in Blue, Golden and Stormy folders, with 22 panoramas. These photos have been retouched: trees and power lines are removed and colors are made more vibrant, so the skies are ready to drop into a composition.

Clouds and the land below

Clouds shape the landscape under them. Cloudy Icelandic Mountain Landscapes (120 photos at 7360 × 4912) shows peaks under different amounts of cloud and mist. Greenland Foggy Terrain (185 photos, $5.99) shows low fog over bare ground. For more peaks in weather, see mountain reference photos.

Frequently asked questions

Have any of the sky photos been edited?

Product descriptions say when a pack has been retouched. Vibrant Skies and Clouds, for example, is cleaned and color corrected for direct use. If you want skies for color studies, choose packs that do not mention retouching, and check each product page.

Can I use these photos to replace the sky in my own photos or renders?

Yes. Every license is royalty-free, covers unlimited projects and never expires. For packs chosen especially for compositing, see sky replacement photos.

Are the panoramas HDR images for lighting a 3D scene?

They are high-resolution panoramic photos, and the product descriptions do not list HDR files. They work very well as backplates and sky domes for the look of the sky, but plan to light your scene separately. For light studies, see lighting reference for artists.