EXPLORING PHOTO EDITING TOOLS
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Moving across, we come to the Graduated Filter tool.
This is one of the more powerful of Lightroom’s editing
tools and is actually more sophisticated than the similar tool
in Photoshop, owing far more to the powerful Graduated Filter
tool in Adobe Camera Raw.
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Next, we have the Radial Filter tool. This is very similar to
the Graduated Filter tool but instead of applying a filter
across the width or height of the image, it places a filter that
starts in the middle and attenuates outwards, or vice versa. It’s
great for making old style vignettes and mimics a centre spot
filter as used on DSLR cameras.
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You wouldn’t be human if you didn’t make mistakes, so
if you apply an editing tool and then regret your choice,
you can undo your mistake by clicking on Reset at the bottom
of every tool’s options panel. Alternatively, you can reset
the image back to its unedited state by clicking Reset at the
bottom of the screen.7 Finally on this panel, we have a tool that is unique to
Lightroom, the Adjustment Brush. This is a very powerful
and versatile tool which can be used to selectively apply a
wide range of effects on your photographs, such as adjusting
exposure or saturation, altering temperature and tint, altering
contrast or removing noise.
10 Once you’re happy with your results, you can click Done
in the lower right of the screen to save your editing.
Remember however that Lightroom edits non-destructively,
so even if you’ve applied a whole range of crops, filters and
adjustments, you can still reset the image back to its original
state at any time.8
The various editing tools all have their own variations on the
options bar at the bottom of the viewing window; most of
them allow the visibility of the tool overlay to be toggled on or off,
or in the case of the filters, show the editing pins. Pick one of these
options and stick with it depending on your own preference.http://www.bdmpublications.com 61