Picasa Tip: Add Drama to your Skies with Graduated Tint

 Edit/Improve Photos, Picasa  Comments Off on Picasa Tip: Add Drama to your Skies with Graduated Tint
Dec 142012
 

Evening SkyI took this picture at sunset time at our favorite RV park, Thousand Trails Peace River.  I love the beautiful, natural surroundings here.  I was particularly struck by the silhouette of the palm trees against the amber sky.  The sunset was creating a golden sky that night.  But, when I imported the picture to my computer, it didn’t even come close to the colors I experienced.  See the original below.  The colors are so drab, it looks like a black and white picture!  I swear that, what my eyes saw was a golden sky!

Recreate the Golden Sky with Graduated Tint

One of our (many) favorite features in Picasa is the Graduated tint tool.  You’ll find it on the 3d tab of editing tools – what used to be called ‘Effects.’  It is pre-set to make blue skies bluer, but you can choose different colors (like the golden sky) just by clicking on the color palette. Drag the crosshairs down to cover more of the picture, increase the Shade slider to make the chosen color darker.  When you like what you see, click Apply.

Blue sky before Graduated Tint
Graduated Tint, Sharpen		 Blue Sky after Graduated Tint, with default blue color
Graduated Tint, Sharpen
Sunset Sky before Graduated Tint
IMG_4221-001		 Sunset Sky after Graduated Tint, with chosen color
Evening Sky

If you are a Geeks on Tour member, you can watch these videos to learn more about exactly how this works.

  1. PIcasa’s 12 Effects
  2. *Add Color to Sky with Graduated Tint

*New!  Uploaded today – 12/14/12

This tip brought to you by Geeks on Tour

Geeks on Tour is a membership website.  There are lots of tutorial videos on editing your pictures with Picasa’s tools.  The first 3 are free for all to view.  To see all of them, you need a Geeks On Tour membership.  It’s only $7/mo or $58/yearly.  Join Today!

Blue Skies with Graduated Tint

 Edit/Improve Photos, Picasa  3 Responses »
Aug 252010
 

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
image

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.

This tip brought to you by Geeks on Tour

Geeks on Tour is a membership website with hundreds of Tutorial Videos on topics of interest to travelers, such as managing digital photos with Picasa, Route-Planning with Streets and Trips, and sharing your travels with a website using Blogger or with friends on Facebook. You can subscribe to our free e-newsletters, or become a paid member and be able to view all of the videos in the Learning Library.

Members may want to view the following tutorial videos.  Not a member?  Join now.

Picasa’s 12 Effects

Basic Edits

Tuning

AND JUST FOR FUN TRY

Using Special Effects for an artsy-fartsy Miami Skyline

 

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