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Using the Radial Filter to Add Light

Lesson 4 from: Using Lightroom to Fix Bad Lighting

Matt Kloskowski

Using the Radial Filter to Add Light

Lesson 4 from: Using Lightroom to Fix Bad Lighting

Matt Kloskowski

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Lesson Info

4. Using the Radial Filter to Add Light

Lesson Info

Using the Radial Filter to Add Light

The one over from the brush tool is the radial tool. It works exactly the same as the brush, it just works in a circle. If I were to crank up my exposure and click and drag, I get this basic big circle of an effect here. You can control the feather. Make it a very hard edge or a very soft edge. You can also control the invert, so it goes on the inside or the outside. Public service announcement number three, it will always be the opposite of what you want. (students giggling) Just remember that. (giggling) It's just one of those unwritten rules that it will be the opposite of whatever you wish that it would be. I actually got lucky on this one. Now, what I'll do is I'll start looking, all right, so I'm thinking we have sun coming from left-hand side, kinda in. You can see it's hitting these peaks a little bit. What I'll do is I will pull this outside, kind of angle it in, and I'll skim across the scene. Kinda like that. Now, it's too bright. I was just showing that as an example before...

. I'll pull that back. You'll also notice, what's it doing to the clouds? See how it's overexposing the clouds? Well, we can go to our highlights and pull it back, 'cause I'll still get the brightening effect, but now I'm saying don't mess with the highlights. If you look at the before and the after, you can start to see it. I could probably even go a little bit brighter. Add some warmth to it. Now, still getting a little bit of that sun and reflection, even though it's not direct sunlight there. Again, I just used to term skim, like we're just kind of skimming it across here. Like so. Before, after. Overall, let's go down here, overall I would say we could probably boost our exposure a little bit just on the overall photo, just to make it brighter. Since you guys insisted, I will go down and add a vignette. (students giggling) If you made me. We go (clicking) back to that. We're building. Start with the brush tool. Brush tool is good for some areas. That radial tool's good for just an overall kind of, whether it's a ray of light, a beam of light, it definitely comes in handy rather than just trying to brush across that whole scene there.

Ratings and Reviews

ValeriaArdiyants
 

Matt is a fantastic instructor who males it feel like a joy to learn. It was very interesting to see his take on how to fix uninteresting lighting. This course delivers on its promises and it's well worth the price.

Maureen Daly
 

This is a great class. Matt is a fabulous teacher who explains things very well and in a very likeable manner. With only using a few sliders and basic tools in Lightroom, Matt is able to totally transform an image. I have lots of old photos I didn't think it was worth doing any editing on....now I'm sure I can save quite a few!

JennMercille
 

Matt Kloskowski is funny, humble, and totally knows his stuff! He doesn't just show you how to use Lightroom to fix undesirable lighting conditions, he walks you through various ways to recognize and work around them in camera/on-location, to make your post-processing even better. I am so flipping glad that I took this class when I did! My shoot last night started a half hour later than I needed it to, and the planning and processing techniques I learned here totally saved it! In fact, this class, combined with Caroline Tran's film class and Blake Rudis' landscape class made the shoot into more than I was expecting, even though everything went wrong on-location! I can't wait to show off my finished image. Thank you Matt for an awesome class!

Student Work

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