The Lightroom Dehaze tool is very powerful – often too powerful. It increases local contrast but also makes images darker and more saturated. It’s often better used with local adjustments and not on the whole image.
Graduated filters
Graduated filters are used most for outdoor shots where there's a bright sky and a much darker landscape beneath it. This is why landscape photographers often use grads on their lenses when they capture images.
But adding a graduated filter digitally gives you a lot more control. You can experiment with the strength, colour and position of the effect at your leisure rather than having to decide irreversibly on the spot. And with a 'digital' grad you can mask out tall objects so that they aren't darkened along with the sky.
There are two things to keep in mind. The first is that you have to judge the exposure so that you keep highlight details in the brightest parts of the picture – shooting RAW will help preserve highlights. If these details are blown out, you can't bring them back.
The second is to remember that grads aren't just for skies. There are many pictures that will benefit from a shaded darkening effect down one edge, across the base or diagonally across the image.
That's not all. Physical graduated filters can only darken, but a digital grad can also be used to lighten up an area of a picture that needs a 'lift'.
How much color do you need: Kynance Cove in Cornwall
How much color do you need? Color is a complex thing, and sometimes less is more. Sometimes flat-out, full-on saturation works, but sometimes it seems you just need hints of color to get an equally strong effect.
Porthleven power lines in Lightroom: one LUT, three graduated filters
Porthleven power lines in Lightroom: one LUT, three graduated filters. How a series of tools and effects can be used in combination towards an overall ‘look’.
DxO PhotoLab Graduated Filter, Control Points and Repair tool in action
This step-by-step editing walkthrough shows a number of DxO PhotoLab tools in action, principally the Local Adjustment tools, including the Graduated Filter and Control Point tools.
The power of adjustment layers and masks
Adjustment layers started out in Photoshop as a way of altering the look of an image without actually changing its pixels. It was the start of non-destructive editing. Now, adjustment layers are everywhere, not just in Photoshop, and for me they are the key to successful image enhancements. There’s a second factor, though – layer […]
Can you really take proper pictures with a smartphone?
Well, I actually think you can. I like taking pictures with my iPhone. It’s partly a practical thing, as it’s the camera I always have with me. More than that, though, it makes me see things differently. I see compositions, shapes, light and shadow in a way that I might not when looking through a […]
How to enhance a sunset with white balance and graduated filter adjustments
Sunsets don’t always come out the way you want them to, so here’s a quick way to enhance them with a white balance adjustment and a graduated filter effect. This picture was shot using the auto white balance on a Nikon Z6 and while the colours are a pretty reasonable representation of how the scene […]
Improve your compositions with two graduated filters not one
If you want to add a dark and brooding sky to your black and white photos then a graduated filter is the obvious way to do it. As long as the sky still has a full range of tones, i.e. it’s not burned out to a solid white anywhere, you can practically do what you […]
How to use the Luminar Adjustable Gradient filter
The Luminar Adjustable Gradient filter is a great tool for all kinds of photography, but for landscapes in particular. It tackles that thorny old problem of bright skies and dark ground and the brightness difference between them. You can fix this at the shooting stage by using a graduated filter on the front of the […]
Fine art black and white with the Fujifilm GFX
I was lucky enough to get a Fujifilm GFX 50S on loan for two weeks to review in Digital Camera and Professional Photography and I’m really impressed by the tonal range and subtlety it can capture. This became obvious when I started working on a set of shots from a drizzle-swept day on Exmoor. The sky […]