Create a Graduated ND Filter in Photoshop in 7 Steps
Saturday 12 January 2019, 13:31 by Michelle Peeters | 9,444 views | 6 commentsThis article was translated from Dutch with the help of AI. Read the original.
One of the most popular filters for landscape photographers is the graduated neutral density filter, or ND filter (ND stands for Neutral Density). Landscape photographers often face the problem of combining a bright sky with a dark foreground.
A graduated neutral density filter helps lower the exposure of the sky by one or more aperture stops, while the exposure of the foreground remains the same. The top of the filter is grey, gradually fading into a transparent bottom.
If you forgot to use your graduated neutral density filter when taking the photo, don't panic. You can still apply your own digital filter afterwards in Photoshop. For this example, I used a photo of a scanned 35mm negative in which the sky looked rather washed out.
Step 1
Open a photo, preferably of a landscape, in which the exposure was set for the ground, making the sky too light. Press D to set the foreground colour to black. At the bottom of the Layers palette, click the Create new fill or adjustment layer icon and choose the Gradient option.
Step 2
In the Gradient Fill dialogue box, click the small downward-pointing black arrow, directly to the right of the gradient preview. Double-click the second gradient in the picker, a gradient that fades from the foreground colour to transparent. Don't click OK yet.
Step 3
A dark area is now automatically placed on the ground, instead of in the sky. Click Reverse to turn the gradient around. The dark gradient area now covers the sky and the lighter area covers the ground.
Your photo looks pretty bad at this point, but we'll fix that in the next step. Click OK.
Step 4
To apply the gradient correctly to the photo, go to the Layers palette and change the blending mode from Normal to Overlay. The sky now becomes darker, but gradually gets lighter as it gets closer to the ground, until the transition disappears when it reaches the ground.
How does the filter know where the ground is? It doesn't. The filter is applied across the entire photo. In the next step, you'll tell it where the ground begins.
Step 5
Double-click the layer thumbnail of the Gradient adjustment layer to open the Gradient Fill dialogue box again. To adjust the gradient from top to bottom, click the gradient preview in the dialogue box once.
In the next dialogue box, you can set the gradient as required. Drag the opacity stop, the small white square at the top right, to the left along the bar. The dark layer will fade upwards. Move the marker until only the sky is made darker. Click OK.
Step 6
The selected gradient automatically fills the entire area, from dark grey at the top to transparent at the bottom. It is a subtle and smooth gradient. For a sharper transition from black to transparent, lower the value in the Gradient Fill dialogue box.
Step 7
The horizon in your photo may not be perfectly straight, for example if the sky appears behind a sloping roof. In that case, you'll need to adjust the angle of the gradient. To do this, click the circle next to Angle and slowly drag the line towards the correct angle for the horizon in the photo.
This literally rotates the gradient, making it easy to align with the horizon. When you're happy with the result, click OK.
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About the author
Michelle Peeters is fotografe en oprichter van DeuxBleus Fotografie. Michelle herkent het bijzondere in het gewone en het gewone in het bijzondere. Ze heeft zich nooit willen specialiseren en is daardoor van alle markten thuis.
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6 comments
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Koos Mast wrote on Tuesday 15 January 2019 at 14:07 | replyThis is still quite a bit easier in Lightroom.
Translated from Dutch. -
Michelle Peeters wrote on Tuesday 15 January 2019 at 16:35
| reply
@Koos: I'm curious! Do you perhaps have a brief explanation?
Translated from Dutch. -
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ErikvanRosmalen
wrote on Wednesday 16 January 2019 at 09:59
| reply
Certainly now that Lightroom has also added the options for luminance and color range masking (in the CC version), it is indeed a bit faster that way. But for those who don't have Lightroom, this is of course the way to do it.
Translated from Dutch. -
Michelle Peeters wrote on Wednesday 16 January 2019 at 11:34
| reply
Nice, thank you Teejoo and Erik!
Translated from Dutch. -
Joop-54 wrote on Wednesday 12 April 2023 at 16:25
| reply
I'm happy with your explanation, it indeed works a bit more cumbersome than in element, but the effect is beautiful.
Translated from Dutch.
Thanks
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