Tag Archives: Graduated Tint

Blue Skies with Graduated Tint

I’ve covered this feature before … but I don’t think I used a very good example in that article, so I’m going to revisit it.  We’ve recently traveled through Montana … you know the tagline right?  Big Sky Country.  We had beautiful weather with clear blue skies, but my pictures did not do the sky justice at all.  Here is a sample:

Before Graduated Tintimage After Graduated Tint
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So, what is ‘Graduated Tint’?’  It’s on the Effects tab, and it has a few options.

image image

When you first click on Graduated Tint, it automatically applies a light blue color to the top half of your picture.  In the example above, I increased the Shade a bit to make the sky even bluer … withOUT making the clouds blue!  Just drag the ‘Shade’ slider to the right and watch the color deepen while it leaves the white areas alone.  Notice, you can also increase, or decrease the amount of the picture that is covered by dragging the crosshair (right on the picture) up or down. 

Here’s another example. 

Original photoimage I’m Feeling Lucky and Graduated Tintimage

I almost deleted that picture, it was so bland and washed out.  But after just a couple clicks, it is now one of my favorite road shots. 

Show-Me-How Videos on Picasa that apply to this article:

121.PI-Picasa’s 12 Effects

There are 12 effects on the third (was last before 3.9) editing tab. The best advice is to play with them. Click on Sepia and see what it does, then just click Undo. Click on Film Grain and take a look, then click Undo.  This video gives an example of all the effects.  Note: when Picasa 3.9 added 2 more tabs of editing features this ‘Effects’ tab became the third tab.  All the effects remain the same. Continue reading →