Comments on: Photoshop CS3 – Adding a Neutral Density Gradient Filter

By: Jen M.

Jen M. — Fri, 13 Nov 2009 20:43:42 +0000

While I appreciate all of the shortcuts that others have offered, I also appreciate “overcomplicated” posts like this one, as I am a nearly complete noob to Photoshop, beyond the basic functions. (I use GIMP, but it is very similar.)

Great post!

Jennifer Moore
JenniferLynn Productions, LLC

By: Andrew

Andrew — Wed, 04 Nov 2009 05:55:40 +0000

Hey man—

Awesome post. Very informative, and solved a problem I’ve been having. I’ll definitely be returning to this blog.

By: Ernesto

Ernesto — Fri, 16 Oct 2009 06:04:19 +0000

im agree, less effort with LR, in case you dont have it, i would try to copy the layer, then change the levels so the sky gets more intense and then i would make a gradient mask and play with the curves on the layermask and/or the opacity

By: Christoph

Christoph — Sat, 10 Oct 2009 02:02:53 +0000

If your goal is to have a nicer sky, just selecting the sky and adjusting levels helps as well. Just be careful to avoid adjusting parts of the ground or the subject

In this shot from Africa I tried to get a little bit of color into the formerly dull sky:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/focx/3873821503/

By: Ham Hock

Ham Hock — Fri, 09 Oct 2009 19:41:52 +0000

I often use the exposure gradient feature in Adobe Lightroom. It works wonders. Selective exposure in post-processing can make photos that were previously bland become excellent.

This feature, and also adjusting the exposure of specific areas with the paintbrush tool in Lightroom are two features that I could never live without.

By: Danferno

Danferno — Fri, 09 Oct 2009 16:46:43 +0000

Or spare yourself all the effort by shooting in raw and using the Graduated Filter (what’s in a name, huh?) tool in Adobe RAW 5.4.

By: Eric

Eric — Fri, 09 Oct 2009 16:14:26 +0000

This is a poor way of achieving a GND effect. All this is really doing in altering the contrast of the sky since you have the layer set to overlay.

It would be much more effective to:
> copy the layer
> lower the exposure
> mask off that layer in a similar fashion to above

Then you actually have different exposures in the same way that an actual graduated neutral density filter would act.