There was a thread which showed an interest in filters a little while ago. I thought I would share how I do graduated ND8 filters in PSP when I havn't taken or havn't bothered to to fit one on the camera. There seems to be so few tutorials on PSP I hope this is of use. This way works if you are using it to add dramatic interest to the sky, and the highlights are not burned out too much. Here are the before and after images.

Firstly make any adjustments to your image to make the foreground how you would like it to be (this can be adjusted later in layers if need be before you merge and flatten).

Add a new 'Adjustment Layer - Brightness/Contrast'
On this layer adjust sky to darken it. In the above example for an ND8 filter I choose: -125 in the brightness, 0 in contrast. You are adjusting for the darkest part of the sky at the top so it can be quite dark to add dramatic effect.

Next choose the 'Flood Fill' tool.

On the 'Materials Palette' click on the foreground colour box.

Choose the Tab at the top ' Gradient'

Click 'Edit'.

Click 'New' - to make your own filter rather than the ones that come already in PSP name it ND8 if you like.

Click box 'Fore'

Click the 'Colour' box next to 'Custom' and chose Black 0 from the Palette.

On the top slider bar click on the left pointer this will make that pointers colour black.

Then click on the right pointer - make this pointers colour white 255 by choosing White 255 in the 'Colour' box next to 'Custom'.

Now judge from the image roughly where you want the filter to work from. In the above image I choose 25% up from the bottom of the image so I moved the left pointer to read 25%.

Move the right pointer to read 90%.

(Moving the sliders about will affect the graduation and how much of the image is filtered)

Close and Save.

Now go back to your image and click on it to flood fill the whole layer with the gradient you have made.

Message edited on: 04/24/2005 08:08

What is described above should get you roughly what the final image will look like.

Finer adjustments can be made using a paintbrush with the foreground colour as Black 0, and background colour as White 255. If you paint in Black 0 it will remove the mask, paint in White 255 it will put it back again.

Clicking on the 'Mask Icon' in the layers palette will make the adjustment layer show up as Red. It is easy then to paint over with your paintbrush any parts where you don't want the filter to be applied. In the above example I painted over parts of the stoney beach and the poles sticking up into the sky.

Choose a large brush for painting over the beach with opacity set at 100, Hardness set at 50. For finer points like the poles reduce the size of the brush. Reduce the size and opacity if you are going along the horizon or over very detailed objects so you can go over it slowly and get the effect right.

If you do make a mistake you can always paint it back in again by right clicking to choose the 'Background' colour White 255 and use that.

To see the results click the 'Mask' icon in the 'Layers Palette' to turn off the red mask.

If you are happy with the results - go to 'Layers - Merge - Flatten'.

(The final layer can be adjusted for opacity before you merge and flatten to give an ND2 or ND4 style of filter.)

This is how I do it, if anyone has any improvements or tips to add, I would be very pleased to hear them :)

Richard

Message edited on: 04/24/2005 08:10

PSP? Paint Shop Pro? Wow! Nicely done. It seems there are tools here that would be useful to all of us. It seems like this gradient adjustment layer would be really useful here if you'd make two shots in the field (from a tripod), at different exposures.

Yes I use Paint Shop Pro 9 I don't know if the same palettes are available in other versions. If you are doing it from two images (a better way to increase dynamic range) you would have to make the adjustment layer by copy and paste from the sky image and use the bottom slider in the Gradient Editor to adjust Opacity.

wow!! i didn't realize it could be used this way... will have to explore my PSP a bit more... there's still stuff there i have no idea about after 3 years... TY Richard!! I will bookmark this! :]

Nice one Richard! I read about the same technique on a website a few years back, but done in Photoshop - this seems to give better variation on that. Being a Photoshop person I can't appreciate the diversity of these settings. sigh A tip I followed for a while from the same place was to do the graduation from the outside border towards the centre; thus leaving the centre of the picture lighter and more of a focal point. I did this for a while then got bored, but it helps with some pics.. (",)

Thx Mike - yes it can be done to simulate all kinds of filters using different effects - eg. soft focus the outside of the image or radial blur it to give the effect of zooming in while shooting etc.
I am sure all the same tools are available in the other progs. named something different maybe but do the same job.

Message edited on: 04/24/2005 15:57

These are not great images just ones from the scrap bin but as an example here is one with ND grad applied to the sky and warm up grad applied to the foreground. Only did that really quick as an example the sky could be darker :)

Message edited on: 04/24/2005 16:30

Fantastic tutorial, Richard! i was showing kemal this thread, and he told me we have a KPT plug in called Gradiant Lab that can do this. (we only have PSP7 and it doesn't have this gradient filter) it's not as easy to use though. anyway, i have that on my list of things to study and learn this week...inbetween working like a thousand hours this week! LOL! reminds me. i should be in bed! thanks again, Richard! your thread started a discussion about this and now i have another tool to use! hopefully the KPT gradiant lab won't be that difficult once i practice a bit! :)