Why I Don't Use Graduated ND Filters
Lesson 8 from: Photoshop and Lightroom for Landscape PhotographersMatt Kloskowski
Why I Don't Use Graduated ND Filters
Lesson 8 from: Photoshop and Lightroom for Landscape PhotographersMatt Kloskowski
Lessons
Intro and The Basic Lightroom Formula
40:42 2Exposure Tips for Landscape Photographers
09:51 3HDR Demo for Landscape Photographers
16:09 4Things Landscape Photographers Stress Too Much Over
07:04 5Waterfall Landscapes in Lightroom and Photoshop
38:01 6Landscape Panoramas in Photoshop and Lightroom
19:30 7Mountain Landscapes in Lightroom and Photoshop
14:07 8Why I Don't Use Graduated ND Filters
03:37Making Your Skies Look Great
10:27 10Enhancing Clouds and Contrast
08:21 11Polarizers and the Sky
16:45 12Replacing the Sky in Landscape Photography
29:06 13iPhone Timelapse for Landscape Photography
08:07 14Organizing and Selecting Your Landscape Photos
15:43 15Editing the Selected Landscape Photos
12:30 16Editing the "Hero" Landscape Shots
08:17 17Lightroom Mobile and Landscape Photography
11:00 18Landscape Printing Presets and Tips
11:44 19Landscape Printing Q&A
10:39Lesson Info
Why I Don't Use Graduated ND Filters
We're gonna, we're gonna kick this off with a topic that I get asked about quite a bit, and that is the graduated neutral density filter. And that filter, it's basically clear, or it's dark on top, and then it transitions to clear, if you've never seen one. That filter is dead to me. In fact, I have a slide that says, why graduated neutral density filters are dead to me. I have taken those filters out of my camera bag. This is not to be confused with a neutral density filter. I'm doing a whole class tomorrow on neutral density filters. That's a whole different, that's for long exposure. But the graduated ND filter for taming the sky is pretty much out of my camera bag. I don't use them anymore. So why? Why is it dead to me? Number one: it's pretty much the old way of doing it. Trust me, I'm not opposed to tradition. If taking that piece of plastic or glass, holding it in front of your camera, and crafting the photo in the field gives you something, by all means, still use it, but just ...
understand, none of us would argue that film is not really the mainstream of what we're using anymore. That was a film tool. That was a tool for what we used in film in order to get the photo that we needed. We have digital cameras now. We actually have digital tools that will do that for us. Wouldn't it be awesome if they were built into the camera? That'd be kinda cool. Let's get a camera manufacturer to make like a grad ND that's built in digitally. That'd be pretty cool. I just thought of that, but anyway. But anyway, just understand, it's an older way of doing something. If that process means something to you, have at it, but also just understand there is a better way to do it too. So, I'm not against the process. I just want people to understand the whole story behind it. So, it is the older way of doing something. If that's the way you want to do it, great. Just know that there's another way for you. It's more gear to worry about. So, we talk about this, lights changing fast. A lot of things are going on. It's one more extra thing to worry about that takes you away from what I consider the most important part of the photo, which is the composition. Getting a good composition. Being creative when you're out there. It's one more thing that takes you away from that. It's an extra piece of gear to carry along. So, we'll leave it at that one. Number three: the results are better without the filter. We looked at it this morning, we're gonna look at it again. But, when you have one of those filters, you're restricted to one stop, two stop, three stop. A hard, a soft. What about if you want all of them? Well, then you gotta carry a one stop hard, a one stop soft grad ND, a two stop hard ND, a two stop soft ND. You've got six filters with you, if you want to have all of those options available to you. They don't have them that are dark and add some blue to the sky, or open up the foreground with the shadows. So, we do have a better way of doing it after the fact.
Class Materials
Bonus Materials with Purchase
Ratings and Reviews
Barry Walsh
Great class Matt! I am about two-thirds the way through the class and have learned a lot about Lightroom and the objective of this course. I must admit I was over-whelmed by the amount of material covered and that was probably due to not having prior knowledge about Lightroom. I have since signed up for the 7 day trial of Adobe Creative Cloud Photography plan and then went through their "beginner's" tutorial. If you are contemplating taking this course, I would highly recommend taking the Adobe Lightroom tutorials first. They cleared up a lot of confusion on my part and I now have a better understanding of the concepts Matt covered. I'm actually going to go back and retake what I viewed to help reinforce both what Matt initially covered and the basic concepts tutorials offered by Adobe. Again, great job Matt and thanks for all the useful information!
a Creativelive Student
Matt is the best and he his the same in person. I had the fortunate opportunity to run into Matt on the side of the road at Dallas Divide in Colorado a couple of years ago.... he is the real deal. I have learned almost all my LR post processing from him when he was with Kelby and have continued to follow him over to On1 as he is the best teacher out there when it comes to Post. Great class and bring him back again. Another great CL class ....... bravo!........ Johnny Boyd @ natureimaging.com