Graduated filters and backgroundsįor me, the primary purpose of Lightroom’s Graduated filter is for making backgrounds darker. Why is always a more difficult question, but once you understand why the how becomes much easier. It can be used with just about any type of photo.īut before we look at how to use Graduated filters, let’s look at why. I’m not just talking about landscapes – the best way to think of the graduated filter is as a tool for making local adjustments.

But, assuming that you did the work in the field and obtained a correctly exposed image, there are ways you can use the graduated filter to enhance your photos. It’s a tool to make your images look better in post-processing – it doesn’t take the place of getting the photo correct in-camera. In other words, Lightroom’s graduated filter isn’t a fix. You can’t bring back detail that wasn’t recorded in the first place. If you don’t record detail in the sky in your landscape photos to start with, then you can’t fix it in Lightroom. The virtual graduate filter in Lightroom, while named after the physical type of graduated filter mentioned earlier, is not really a replacement. Neutral density graduated filters come in different sizes, strengths and even colours, as anyone who remembers the once popular tobacco coloured graduated filter made by Cokin knows. Lightroom’s Graduated filter tool is named after a type of filter used by landscape photographers to darken the skies in their photos.

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Lightroom 4 graduated filter tutorial