Tasser, Lavdas, and Schirpke studied the impact of visible clouds on opinions formed of images. They found “no significant differences in preferences between pictures with and without clouds when the pictures with clouds contained a proportion of sky around 22% and a cloud cover of about 39%. However, a higher proportion of sky positively influenced landscape preferences, while a higher proportion of clouds, especially in combination with a lower proportion of sky, had negative effects. . . . Our findings suggest that the presence of clouds in sunny landscape photographs can alter landscape preferences. A high proportion of clouds, in particular in combination with a low proportion of sky, can lead to lower preference scores compared to a sky without clouds. In contrast, a high proportion of sky with single, small clouds can increase preference scores. Our findings therefore have important implications for landscape preference studies using photographs as stimuli.”
Erich Tasser, Alexandros Lavdas, and Uta Schirpke. 2023. “Assessing Landscape Aesthetic Values: Do Clouds in Photographs Influence People’s Preferences?” PLoS ONE, vol. 18, no. 7, e0288424, https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0288424