Shooting With Graduated Color Filters

Could use good, straight input from the nascient:

 

I have use for ND grad and polarizing filters, especially as I shoot 4x5" and

6x7cm film in addition to DSLR, and am thinking about getting some color grad

filters for sunrises/sets, adding twilight colors, and some other things

(sepia/extreme warming for a vintage/colored look). With digital image

processing, am I wasting my money on color or color grad filters for digital

post-processing?

 

I currently use a low-end 'other than PS' post-processing software on a PC

laptop for now, but have recently bought a Mac G5 Dual Quad, and will migrate to

PS around the first of the year.

 

TIA

Imo, the graduated filters may be useful with 4x5" and 6x7cm. As are polarizers. All the

other effect filters may be replicated, with better control, in PP.

Sunset filters can be very handy, especially when you absolutely need to "get the shot" while

traveling. A warming orange, or "sunset" kind of filter works best from my experience. Stay

away from the darker colors such as red if possible. I use the Cokin XP series of filters. They

are also graduated which is usually essential for sunset/sunrise. Photoshop cannot do that!

I''m not sure I understand the above response. Are you saying the Photoshop can't do a graduated filter? It most certainly can, and with far more precision then any Cokin filter. As much as the purist in me would love to take the "perfect shot" every time, sometimes it simply isn't possible. Think of working in Photoshop as the digital version of darkroom manipulation. It's just another tool, but clearly one that can be undone if you make a mistake.

 

Regards,

 

Will

 

Adobe CTI Photoshop

"Are you saying the Photoshop can't do a graduated filter?"

 

Photoshop can add color, of course. But it cannot duplicate what the GRADUATED filter itself

can do. For sunset images you need that graduated effect, or you will almost always lose

highlights or shadow detail. Photoshop can help with those areas to a degree, but blown

highlights are often impossible to save. This is why I suggested that a graduated filter (even a

colored graduated filter) is better than nothing at all. Photoshop cannot beat or even match

what the filter itself can do.

GND filters are not a waste of money at all. They close down the gap between the highlights & the shadow zones which narrows the dynamic range and enables one to capture detail in both shadow and highlight zones. It is a very rewarding experience to be able to accomplish this with a camera in one take.<p>

 

Photoshop can only work with data received from the camera; blown highlights/ blocked shadows can't suddenly develop detail that was never captured in the first place.

Vincent, you are one best so your advice is to be taken seriously.

 

I am just starting to learn to use grad. filters and can see their benefits. But I am wondering about your comment on colored grads. Do you mean that they give better results than neutural grads plus colored/warming/cooling filters that are available in Photoshop?

 

There are just too many filters to carry, so I use only the 1.2, 0.9 NDs, and 0.9, 0.6 grad NDs. All are neutral.

 

As the OP says, can Photoshop not achieve an orange/sunset filter effect if your starting point is an image with a neutral grad ND?

There is also a subjective aspect to this. I do suspect that many people who are attracted to the idea of colouring their photographs eventually conclude that subtlety beats garishness. Most of us have a secret stash of nastily coloured Cokin stuff hidden at the back of a cupboard somewhere. If you shoot with ND grads, so creating an image with the detail in both highlights and shadows that you want, you can colour that image pretty much how you want in PS. You don't have to guess now how strong you want the effect to be and what colours to buy. You can do it at your leisure, in an environment where you have time to consider your decisions and change them as you think appropriate. And all without destroying the original, correctly coloured image- which unless you bracket with/without coloured grads you will do if you filter in the field.

 

I guess my view is that you'd be best off having as many quality ND grads as you can afford/carry in both hard and soft edge, together with a decent polariser. And leaving the coloured stuff in the shop.

You can handle high contrast much better in PP, applying HDRI (High Dynamic Range

Imaging; http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/HDRI) than you can using graduated ND filters.

<b>"You can handle high contrast much better in PP, applying HDRI (High Dynamic Range Imaging; http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/HDRI) than you can using graduated ND filters."</b><p>

 

That's debatable, but I won't go there for now. HDR has other drawbacks, the main one being movement between shots. Even if there is no breeze to shake the leaves of trees, there is still cloud/water movement to deal with. At some point, the solution will involve masking. Why bother fiddling around in PS (and I love fiddling in PS) when you can do it in one shot with graduated neutral density filters?<p>

I agree with Pam that HDR is no walk in the park and has plenty of drawbacks, though it is

a reasonable alternative nowadays. Still, the proper use of an ND only makes even that

process even more successful.

 

 

Andy A asked:... "But I am wondering about your comment on colored grads. Do you mean

that they give

better results than neutral grads plus colored/warming/cooling filters that are available

in Photoshop?"

 

 

***Whenever I shoot any sunset/seascape location I almost always shoot that location

with a graduated ND (usually a two stop... though not always, of course), AND with a

colored graduated filter (usually the Cokin 197 or 198 sunset filter or a tobacco 124). I will

also use these filters with and without a polarizer, usually removing the polarizer as the

lighting fades away. Working a scene this way has always allowed me to have a greater

variety of looks and options when I finally get to the light-box for editing. More times than

not, I have found the images that were taken with the P-197 or 198 Cokin sunset filters

carried the most impact. Now, *IF* the natural colors of that sunset were there, I will

always try to focus more attention on using the non-colored ND grads. Even so, I will still

take at least a series or two of images with colored as well. I have personally found that

when there is minimal natural color in the sky, that I hands down prefer the colored

filtered images over the colorless ND shots, even with the option of adding color in

Photoshop afterwards. I can still add or take away color generated by the use of such

filters at will. I can adjust color balance, hue, saturation etc. etc. However, the fact remains

(for me

anyway), that I usually prefer what the original capture with a filter looks like to begin

with, if used correctly, verses a colorless image and then using Photoshop to add color.

This is my own experience however. It may not work for you or others.

 

Here is an example of an image that we have sold thousands of prints and giclee of. Have

had several thousands of dollars in stock revenue generated as well.

 

http://www.photo.net/photo/1967620&size=lg

 

 

This is exactly what the proper use of a colored filter can produce and offer to the

professional photographer looking to create a series of marketable images. These filters

were designed to make a colorless scene look colorful as naturally as possible. To make a

living in this business one needs to look at all possibilities available. I have plenty of

images, including some I am working on presently, that I prefer without the colored filters.

But then again, using both just gives everybody involved another set of options altogether.

And THAT is

usually a good thing.

Pam, as you say "If it is possible...". But sometimes it is not possible with one exposure. For example, in the attached image I used a grad ND, but I still bracketed 3 shots and used Photomatix to get a HDR starting point.

 

I then reworked the image to push back some shadows to make it more realistic, as well as bringing out some highlights that I found pleasing.

 

With just the best exposed image the highlight area that I wanted to emphasis was underexposed and of course this results in noise that I couldn't reduce sufficiently.<div></div>

Thanks to all for their input thus far. It's all been very useful and informative hearing your collective advice and opinions. I think I'll try some Lee color grads (I shoot some pretty WA lenses, like 58mm in 4x5), as well as the ND grads and the LB color combo polarizer I'd already ordered from Dr. Bob.

 

I like a lot of different 'looks', including subtle color (which I think HDR is eminently suited for), but I'm always wowed by work like Vincent's. Thanks for sharing that information, Vincent - it's very informative as well as being confirmation I'm on the right track to geting the look I want for dusk, dawn, and seascapes. I want my images to stand out. Yours certainly do, and they certainly hold MY attention!

 

From the look of things, I think color grads will be useful to me. I also think PS has surely killed off non-grad color filters (I already have/use non-grad ND), so I'll not buy any of those. Trying HDR is definitely in my future (I think it's the hot ticket for daylight and night urban-and-land-scapes, but it does have current limitations for me besides movement, like film/processing costs and field-loading magazine hassle with LF (it's strictly DSLR for me while I'm in the steep part of the learning curve). I think PS will help me achieve what I want with everything else. Now I wonder how much RAM I'll need in the Mac to shoot QTVR in HDR...hmmmmmmm.

 

Thanks again to everyone for taking the trouble to post!

Ah, now I understand what you mean. I couldn't grasp it in your original post

True, Will...I really didn't express it well to begin with. I'm sure that with sufficient knowledge, skill, and time, PS can do almost anything I want. I was kind of looking to kill two birds with one stone with color grads, like holding back a bright sky and coloring it at the same time, or just getting a gradual taper back to natural color, but I never thought in terms of their being the only tool in the toolbox. I now realize color solids (except solid NDs) are well on their way to obsolesence. PS and some good instructional materials will be the next step up after my wallet recovers from ponying up for the Lee and Singh-Ray stuff <ouch!>. Thanks again to y'all!

Vincent is 100% right and his images are proof of the fact that you can acheive results with color filters that you can not very realistically acheive in PS. The reason for this is because in digital editing you are dealing with 3 sets of numbers from 0 to 255 (ie. the RGB value) and the film (or CCD with digital or scan of film) is responding to wavelengths of electromagnetic radiation in the range of wavelengths in the visible spectrum. And guess what? The translation is never perfect. I won't go into the very long physics discussion here why that is true, but basically your digital file does not maintain any actual record of the wavelenths received on the film or ccd, but translates that information into RGB values in the individual pixels. And as with any translation, information is lost. Just as scanning a print is not going to be as good as scanning the original film, you are not going to have as good of information to work with if you are applying virtual filters after the fact in photoshop as you are if you are producing the changes in the most original information--light. And as was aluded to here, the more you get away from the optimal luminous intensity of the film or CCD, ie. the greater the underexposure or overexposure, the more color information is lost.

 

So listen to Vincent and look at his work in comparison to all the PSed stuff. It is very clear to me that filtering the light before the fact is why you see such special results from Vincent. This is not to say that you can't also get some really cool results in PS...I would never restrict myself creatively like that and for the same reason I will not deprive myself of the opportunities afforded by using graduated color and neutral density filters.

After recently taken a trip and used a color filter. I must also speak to the contrary...when you use a color filter, you are loosing information before light ever hits the film.

 

Never use a colored filter on an object of similar color...you will lose tonality.