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 Tint

After Graduated Tint

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

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 photo

I’m Feeling Lucky and Graduated Tint

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:

• *new Blue Skies with Graduated Tint  (Members Only)
  video companion for this tip
• Individual Photo View for Editing (Free)
• Basic Edits (Members Only)
• Intro to the 12 Effects
• (Members Only)
• All Picasa Show-Me-How Videos If you’re not a member of Geeks on Tour, you can Join Today!  It’s only $39 for a year of access to all the videos in our Complete Learning Library

Related posts:

1. Picasa Tip: Blue Skies
2. Better Pictures