Adobe Photoshop CS6 Top 100 Simplified Tips and Tricks by Lynette Kent

IMPROVE A SKY with the Camera Raw graduated filter
When you first open an image in Camera Raw, the
tools in the Basic tab help you adjust the overall
brightness, white balance, and saturation of the
image. On other tabs, you can adjust different tones
and colors individually, make lens corrections, alter
colors in the image, sharpen and reduce noise, and
even save some or all of your settings as presets so
that you can reapply them to similar images.
The Graduated Filter tool in the Camera Raw dialog
box enables you to apply tonal changes similar to
using a photographic graduated filter on a camera
lens, but with more flexibility. For example, you can
easily dramatize an open sky in a landscape photo by
changing the exposure, saturation, clarity, and color
of the sky or a large area and completely change the
mood of the image.
You can open any file from Camera Raw as a Smart
Object in Photoshop. Then you can easily reopen the
Camera Raw dialog box and change the settings as
you work before you save the file in Photoshop.
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1 Open an image with a large sky
area in Camera Raw.
2 Click and drag the Exposure slider
to balance the brightness.
3 Click the Graduated Filter tool.
2
The Graduated Filter options
appear under the histogram.
4 Click Show Overlay ( changes
to ).
5 Press and hold Shift and click and
drag from the top of the image
to where the sky meets the
foreground.
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