Use the Lightroom gradient filter to create effects black and white scenery

Photographing the sky, photographers mostly aspire to the air and the details of the sky, even when the sky is cloudy. Most of the beautiful, stunning scenes we see are not without the rich layers of clouds in the sky. Of course, to keep all the details of the sky and the ground at the same time, we must use special photographic techniques.

Generally speaking, the sky is always brighter than the ground, coupled with the digital camera imaging components latitude compared with the human eye or there is a certain gap, we use conventional methods to take pictures of the sky will always have some exposure. To solve this problem, traditional filters have become the essential photographic equipment of the film Age's professional landscape photographer.

Square Gradient Filter

Traditional gradient filters are not very convenient to use. When carrying a separate container, the camera needs to spend time to install in front of the camera, often let the shooting become hectic. At the same time, adding a piece of glass to the lens itself will have a certain effect on the image quality. Thankfully, in today's digital photography era, Adobe's highly efficient image processing software, Lightroom, has been able to help us replace inconvenient traditional filters with post-processing.

The 2004 public plan, Lightroom, which was officially listed in 2007, is an image-processing software specially launched by Adobe for Photographers. Unlike Adobe's signboard, ps Photoshop software, Lightroom is more efficient, faster, more intuitive, and better fit the photographer's work experience. Although Photoshop still has a significant advantage in processing image depth, the limitations of the software architecture make it impossible to match lightroom in processing efficiency. Imagine how difficult it is to have dozens of or hundreds of raw files open in Photoshop and to compare, filter, and process them in indecision. And Lightroom makes it all a breeze.

Today, the highly acclaimed Lightroom has been released to the 4.4 version, and the beta version of LR5 is coming soon. The perfect design plus numerous plug-ins support, let Lightroom already basically can meet professional Photographer's request. Here, the small weave introduces one of LR's many functions: using the analog gradient filter to take pictures of the sky's layered scenery.

Original film

This photo was taken in Sydney Bay, Australia. At that time, the wind, dark, clouds over the sky soon covered the skies over Sydney, there is a kind of mountain rain to the momentum, it is clear that a rainstorm is coming. Small knitting hurriedly pulled out the camera, took this picture. Deliberately use the wide-angle side of the lens to accommodate more sky parts.

As mentioned earlier, automatic metering under the sea level in the building blocks of the basic right time, the camera does not maintain a good layer of the sky, the sky appears to have a significant exposure. The picture itself was completely out of the border of the dark cloud that the human eye saw.

The clouds are too exposed

At this point we need to use Lightroom to depress the exposure of the sky, thus achieving the traditional gradient filter effect. First, we import the picture in RAW format into the Lightroom.

Interface after the LR is imported

To mention here, dealing with raw format is Lightroom's forte. Regardless of the theoretical algorithm or the actual effect of LR on the raw format of the file decoding is very good. In particular, such as the need to change the exposure to "find the details" of the processing, Lightroom demonstrated the ability to completely inferior to the original raw decoding software. We recommend that you use the RAW format as a shot format.

At the top of the right argument bar, below the histogram, we click the Gradient filter icon.

Click on this icon

Then you need to set the position of the gradient filter in the middle of the preview. Click and drop the mouse where you want to place the filter, and put the gradient filter in place. The size of the filter, the orientation of the placement, can be adjusted manually.

Click and drop the mouse to place the filter

When the position of the filter is selected, the Parameter Tuning menu appears on the right. The content that can be adjusted is very rich, including the very important parameter setting such as color temperature, exposure, clarity. All the adjustments here will only affect the part of the picture that is covered with the filter.

Reduce exposure

In this parameter adjustment menu we reduce the exposure value.

After lowering the exposure, we can see that the image only has a change in the top half of the exposure, which is the part where the gradient filter works.

After reducing exposure

Because the raw format is used, we can see that the details of the cloud are well preserved. This is also a very powerful place for Lightroom. For each camera different raw file decoding can do very high level, is not inferior to the original software. This also reflects the strong technical strength of adobe Company.

Increase contrast and clarity

At the same time, in order to make our photos more visual impact, we can also moderately increase the cloud part of the contrast and clarity, so that the screen looks more shocking. The effect is more like a built-in "theatrical effect" filter that resembles a camera brand.

This is the effect of adding contrast and clarity to the photo.

Increase contrast and clarity

When we are satisfied with the adjustment of the gradient filter part (that is, the top of the image), we only need to click the "Close" icon under the adjustment panel. The adjustments we make after closing are based on the entire picture instead of the top half of the gradient filter.

Click Close

For personal preference, Xiao Bian turned the photo into a black-and-white model. In fact, Lightroom's ability to process Black-and-white photos is also very powerful.

To black and white

Of course, when dealing with black-and-white images, it is not easy to reduce the saturation of the photos to 0. The characteristic of Black-and-white photography is the aesthetic of gray-tone composition. From white to black rich level, from bright concise high profile to deep and thick low-key, good black-and-white photography is in such a narrow space to get rich works of change.

After adjusting, we can get a picture which is more shocking than the original image.

Final effect

Compare with original artwork:

Contrast

Through the comparison we can see that the processed photos in the sky level of detail, the overall visual impact on the larger than the original film has been greatly improved. You can try it with your own photo shoot.

Finally, I wish all of you can pull out your favorite photos through Lightroom.

Category:

• PS Image Processing