Perfect sunsets

Louise Carey shows you how to tone down skies with the Graduated Filter

- Louise Carey

THE MISSION

Get the correct exposure for balanced scenes

Time needed 15 minutes

Skill level Beginner

Kit needed • Adobe Lightroom Classic

Every photographer crosses their fingers for a stunning sunset on a landscape shoot, but what happens if the sky is so bright that you struggle to be able to properly expose your image?

Luckily, that’s where the Graduated Filter tool in Adobe Lightroom Classic CC comes in. In lieu of using a physical filter to cut down the amount of light entering the lens and darkening the sky, this virtual version uses the information within your image to mimic the effect.

This means that you can simply select the areas of your image that you want darkened or lightened and Lightroom will do the rest. You can download the same Lightroom_before.jpg start file we’re using here (see link bottom right), or open one of your own landscape shots into Lightroom Classic to follow along (a Raw file works even better), then watch the accompanying video lesson to see how it’s done in real-time.