Essential photo editing tricks for landscapes: 08 Use Selective Adjustments
or more than a century, landscape photographers have been selectively altering different parts of their images to boost skies, reveal detail and Fguide the eye around a scene.
The Graduated Filter and Adjustment Brush tools in Camera Raw make these type of adjustments easier than ever.
Both tools work by setting pins that represent a particular change in tone, which is defined by the settings you input using the controls on the right.
You can tweak either the affected area or the tonal settings at any time. In practice, it's usually best to guess roughly the kind of change you want to make (for example, input a negative exposure value to darken) before defining the area with the tool.
Once the gradient or mask has been made, return to the sliders and fine-tune to perfect the look.
Graduated Filter
Drag a line with this tool to create a gradual blend between the tonal change and the original tones. Hold down Shift while dragging to snap the line to a perfectly horizontal or vertical angle. To make another gradient, simply drag somewhere else.
Adjustment Brush
Click over an area to set a pin, then paint to increase the area affected by the change in tone. Check Show Mask Overlay or press Y to toggle a view of the mask on and off so you can see where you've painted. Use ] and [ to resize your brush as you paint, and hold down Alt to erase parts of the mask. Click New or press N to set another pin.
