There’s a new feature in Lightroom 2.0 that Mikkel Aaland just showcased in his blog on creating Vignettes with the Graduated Filter. It’s a great idea and a neat tutorial. But I have to tell you that I’m really blown away by the drama I’m able to add to a lot of landscapes simply by using it as though I’d placed one of those graduated neutral density filters on my camera before I shot. There are so many times, when shooting digitally, that you want to over-expose slightly in order to preserve shadow detail that you might want to add contrast to that skies all too often turn out to be more bland than you’d hoped. The shot below is a good example. By the time I’d adjusted the land, the sky was pretty tepid.

All I had to do to really make it pop was to select the Graduated filter in the Localized Adjustments bar, press Shift to keep the graduation from tilting (not that there aren’t times when you might want to make it tilt), then drag down until I liked the effect I was getting. If it’s too dark or too light, all I have to do is adjust the Exposure and/or Brightness sliders. Here’s the result. Took all of about 1 minute.

I’ve also discovered that if I have a landscape that doesn’t blend so easily with the graduated adjustment, it’s pretty easy to use the Adjustment Brush to modify the bottom of the graduation so that it blends the way I want it to. I’ve already greatly improved at least 50 or 60 of my existing landscapes so that they now look a whole lot more saleable. Thanks, Adobe, for a great last-minute addition.