Pbleic: Views and Things

Tuesday, June 01, 2004

Wasque photo
Nice way to create a "Graduated Neutral Density Filter" effect. This one is quick and easy and works really well. Take the photo in RAW. Make two copies of the picture - one developed for the ground, the other for the sky. Open both in Photoshop. Copy the dark photo on top of the light photo in a new layer. Make a white layer mask on the new layer. Now, open the gradient maker, and choose a black to white gradual gradient. While highlighting the mask on the darkened layer, pull the gradient down from the top of the photo. The effect is to create a mask where the bottom is composed entirely from the darker photo, and the top from the lighter photo with a gradient. You may need to adjust the "slope" of the gradient, and you may not want to drag it completely to the bottom of the photo. Just try it over and over until you like the effect. I used this technique on the photo, above.
|| Paul 6/01/2004 08:27:00 AM

4 Comments:

• Hi Paul,

Like your initiative.
The gradient technique is not bad, but looks a bit unnatural. I use a different technique:

Background layer: normal exposed picture
Layer 1: underexposed picture

Select the background layer. Select a color range: select shadows. Feather the selection with a radius of 100 pixels. While the selection is highlit, click layer 1 and click on the layer mask icon. Now change the opacity...

Cheers,

Grrrippp

mailto:stefaan.degroote@pandora.be

By Anonymous Anonymous, at June 2, 2004 3:14 PM  

• Actually, that is what the scene looked like!

I thought the gradient worked well here. Usually I use the converse of
your technique:

Light photo base.
TWO dark layers. First set to 0% opacity. Highlighting the second press
Ctrl-Alt-~ at the same time - you get marching ants on the highlights. Go
to Layer Mask, Reveal Selection. Now, increase opacity to taste on the
middle dark layer. Completely adjustable.

Paul

By Blogger Paul, at June 2, 2004 3:35 PM  

• Two tricks with the gradient:

1. You can adjust the gradient itself. By clicking on it, you open the gradient editor. The sliders can adjust the gradient so that it is more abrupt or smoother, all at one end or distributed.

2. You also can choose how far to drag it. Many drag it all the way to the bottom. In fact, you can drag it to the middle.

I don't think this one looks too artificial:
http://www.photo.net/photodb/photo?photo_id=2412483&size=lg

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