An example shot of the efficacy of a grad ND filter (gradutated neutral density filter).
As you can see, the bottom of the filter is clear, the same exposure as my foreground grasses and trees. Towards the middle of the filter (graduated), it darkens to a (neutral) gray. The lovely blue sky peeking out is what I wanted, but the foreground is perpetually shadowed by these giant cliffs. Unfortunately, the filter darkens in a straight line and the notch does not. In darkening the sky, it also darkens the lower cliffs to near black, losing all their wonderful color. Now that I am better at combining exposures in PS, I would take the shot with the filter in place to ideally expose the sky and upper cliffs and take a second shot to expose for the middle red cliffs, layering them in to the final shot for the best of both worlds.
I took this both to show the power and the limitations of the grad ND, and find it very effective at doing just that.
Here endeth my Photo Tip o' the Day. :)
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horacekenneth 12 months ago | reply
love it, thanks for the explanation
marcellucray 11 months ago | reply
fascinating
coldfused 4 months ago | reply
How does PS know when you combine the shots to remove the darkened cliffs?
Sara Heinrichs (awfulsara) 4 months ago | reply
Luckily, I am smarter, sometimes, than my Photoshop. ;) It's all about a good mask. If you bracket exposures, like I would do for this scene, you will end up with (at least) 3 layers with (at least) 3 different exposures - foreground, cliffs, and sky.
I would apply layer masks to the cliff and sky layers and fill em with black. Choose the brush tool, set to white, zoom in, select your cliff layer and paint em in on the mask. Select your sky layer, and paint it in. Zoom way to in clean up your edges so you don't have halos, merge your layers, and you're done.
Photoshop has HDR merge tools (and other programs do too) but I have never found that I get the result I want any other way than doing it myself. Don't like the programs thinking for me - I know how I want it to look. More work, sure, but a better quality result in the end.