Lightroom is a great tool for organizing and editing your images. Basic controls like exposure and white balance make changes to your entire image.

What if you only want to make changes to part of your photo?

Graduated and Radial Filters to the rescue! Learn how to use both in this free tutorial.

How to Use Graduated Filters

To create a Graduated Filter, first click on the Develop Module and click on the grey rectangle on the top of the right side bar. This will bring up the controls for the Graduated Filter.

To apply a Graduated Filter on your image, click and drag across your photo. To move the Graduated Filter, click the center circle and drag it to the desired location.

Click and drag the outside lines to define the feathering of the Graduated filter, and rotate the center line to rotate the entire Graduated Filter.

Once creating the filter, adjust the settings in the right sidebar. The changes you make will only appear in the filter.

How to Remove Haze in Lightroom + Photoshop

A bit of haze can be beautiful in photos but it can also obscure detail. Adobe recently added the Dehaze filter to remove haze simply.

In this episode, you will learn how to remove haze in Lightroom and Photoshop!

How to Remove Haze in Lightroom

Adobe recently added the ‘Dehaze” filter in Lightroom. Navigate to the Develop Module and scroll down the right sidebar to get to the “Effects” tab.

Here you will find the Dehaze filter. To remove haze, slide to the right, to add haze, slide to the left.

If you find that removing haze makes your image too dark, lighten the shadows in the Basic Tab in the right sidebar.

Learn how to enhance any sky by making it more dramatic in Photoshop!

How to Create a Selection from the Sky

The first step in creating a dramatic sky in Photoshop is to create a selection out of the sky, so only the sky is altered, not the rest of the image.

Use the Magic Wand Tool to select the sky. If the Magic Wand Tool doesn’t select enough area, bring the Tolerance higher, if it is selecting too much, lower the Tolerance. In this episode, we use a tolerance of about 30.

Chances are, your entire sky will not be selected with one click of the Magic Wand Tool. To add to an active selection, hold down the SHIFT Key and click another area. You will see a ‘+’ icon next to the Magic Wand Tool Cursor.

To remove an area from a selection, hold the ALT/OPTN key and click on a selected area. You will see a ‘-‘ icon next to the Magic Wand Tool Cursor.

The goal here is to select the entire sky without selecting areas like trees, people, or buildings.