Replicating the effect of a graduated filter in PS CS

[benvendetta]

What is the best way to replicate the effect of a graduated filter (any colour) in Photoshop CS, or at least how to give more contrast between sky and clouds?

Thanks in anticipation.

[halesr]

Here is a page with a tutorial I think might be what you are looking for. There are lots of tutorials and free downloads of actions and other helpful learning tools at this site.

HTH

Look down the righ column for
Blended Exposures Revisited

http://www.thelightsright.com/tutorials-pdf.htm

[seanleaid]

I think the use of a graduated filer is in situations where the difference in bightness between two 'interesting' parts of a scene is so great that, no matter what exposure you use, the full range cannot be captured by the film or the sensor. Either the bightest part (sky) goes pure white or the darkest part (shadows) goes pure back.
So you use a graduated filter to reduce the brightness of the sky, bringing the difference in brightness bewteen sky and shadows within the range of your film or sensor. In mono, a plain red filter can be easier to use as the blue of the sky goes largely black, and you don't need to be too carful about how you position the filter.
So, the filter is used when you take the picture, not afterwards. If the detail in the sky or shadow couldn' t be captured by the film or sensor, you can't really add it afterwards.
It can still be the case that the brightness range of the captured image is greater than you can print with your paper and inks. And you can then reduce the bightness of the sky even further: I don't know about Photoshop, but in PWP you just create a graduated mask and then tweak the contrast of the masked sky.

[halesr]

In difficult situations and when using a tripod, take two pictures and expose one for the highlights and one for the lowlights. Then, in your image editing software blend the two images.--Rene

[shaun_santa_cruz]

In difficult situations and when using a tripod, take two pictures and expose one for the highlights and one for the lowlights. Then, in your image editing software blend the two images.--Rene

Use your histogram when you do this. If you do 2 shots, using your histo, do one for the shadows and one for the highlights.

[vanderstouw]

a really great way, which i do all the time at work, is to make a selection, feather it about 250 pixels, and then make an adjustment layer, levels or curves will both work.

if you use curves, sometimes your selection will shift red, so you will have to load the selection and apply a color balance adjustment layer to compensate.

and, yes, these adjustment layers work in 16-bit mode.

this isn't a method i would necessarily suggest in 8-bit mode actually. fields of color (like skies) tend to band when you pull them down... there just aren't enough colors to not band - (NOTE: this may not show on your screen, and only show in a print - as monitor color spaces are actually quite small, much smaller than your working color space)...

a good way to see this is to make this kind of move and look at the histogram. if there are white bands in the histogram, then you are having areas with no information.