Sky and Cloud Backgrounds

What is in this collection

Blue skies run from a cloudless cobalt-to-pale gradient to fair-weather clouds, billowing cumulus, feathery cirrus streaks and a baby blue sky with small puffy clouds. Sunset backgrounds include pink and tangerine clouds, a fiery red and orange sky, golden-hour clouds lit amber, a mackerel sky of rippled cloudlets and lavender and rose cloud bands. Softer skies include a pastel dawn in peach and lilac, cotton candy pink and blue clouds, a hazy golden sunrise, a teal and peach afterglow and a pearl-grey overcast sky. For drama there are brooding storm clouds, a stormy sunset with gold-edged clouds and silver-lined clouds on pale blue. A few dusk skies, a twilight gradient with the first stars, moonlit wispy clouds and two auroras, are shared with the night sky collection.

Cloud, sunset and pastel backgrounds

A sky background puts a subject outdoors without a location. Behind cut-out people, blue skies and fair-weather clouds suit sports portraits, graduations and summer parties. The pastel skies work like a soft ombre background: the pastel dawn, teal and peach afterglow and cloudless gradient change smoothly from top to bottom, so lettering reads well anywhere. The billowing cumulus, hazy sunrise and silver-lined clouds are gentle, hopeful skies for christenings and memorial cards. For stars and galaxies, see night sky and galaxy backgrounds; for painted pastel washes, watercolor and gradient backgrounds.

Tips for using these backgrounds

• Grade warm or cool to the sky. Most skies are evenly lit, so colour matters more than direction: give subjects on sunset and golden-hour skies a warm grade and those on blue and storm skies a cooler one. The golden-hour clouds are lit from the right, and the stormy sunset and hazy sunrise from the left.
• Use half-length subjects. Waist-up and chest-up cut-outs look natural against open sky, as if the camera is low. Full-length people need ground under their feet, which these skies do not have.
• Use the gradients for text-heavy layouts. The cloudless blue gradient, pastel dawn and teal and peach afterglow fade from top to bottom, so put a title in the lighter part and photos below. A narrow slice of the portrait file keeps the whole fade in a 2 x 6 strip.

Every sky is AI-generated rather than photographed, so there are no planes or wires to clean up. For outdoor scenes with ground to stand on, see summer digital backdrops.