How to Use Graduated Filters in Lightroom
The graduated filter is a photographic technique (traditionally using a special filter on the camera lens) where the amount of filtering is decreased across the image. The technique is commonly used to enhance landscape photographs, allowing the sky and landscape to be enhanced separately, the effects blending smoothly from the top to the bottom of the scene. Adobe Photoshop Lightroom provides a graduated filter feature that can be used to apply exposure, brightness, contrast, saturation, and other effects across a digital photograph to achieve the effect of using a graduated lens filter. Multiple graduated filters can be stacked to apply multiple effects.
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Instructions
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1
Open a photo you want to apply a graduated filter to in your Lightroom library.
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Open the Lightroom Develop module by clicking "Develop" in the upper right corner (Windows, "Ctrl+Alt+2"; Mac, "Command+Option+2").
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Select the "Graduated Filter" tool Develop toolbar below the Histogram panel (or hit the "M" key). The Graduated Filter options panel appears below the toolbar.
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Select the effect you want to apply from the Effect menu ("Saturation Exposure," "Brightness," or any other).
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Draw a graduated filter by clicking where you want the effect to start and dragging across the photo in the direction you want the effect to fade. The graduated filter pin (a gray circle with a black center) shows the center of the effect. The three white parallel lines or guides show the low, center, and high points of the effect.
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Adjust the direction of the graduated filter as needed. Hover the mouse cursor near the pin until it turns into a rotation icon, click and drag around the pin to rotate.
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Resize the range of the graduated filter as desired. Hover the mouse cursor near the high or low line until it turns into a hand icon, click and drag to shrink or grow the range of the effect.
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Move the center if necessary. Click on the pin and drag it to the new position.
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Adjust the effect settings to increase or decrease the effect by moving the effect slider. Other effects can be added to the current one by clicking the "Show effects" button in the upper right corner of the panel and adjusting the appropriate sliders.
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Add another graduated filter if desired. Hover over the neighborhood where you want the effect to begin, and move the mouse until a crosshair icon appears. Click and drag to draw a new graduated filter. Repeat the filter adjustments as before.
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Delete an unwanted graduated filter by clicking the filter's pin and hitting the "Delete" key.
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