Recently there was a “great” storm outside and I just had to take a ride out to the ocean to see it in action. I probably took about 150 shots before I went home again.

Actually I wanted to try to make some new HDR images (with three or more images merged) but my tripod was way to cheap to stand against the wind for multiple EV shots. Anyway I still got some nice shots and some that didn’t reached the top-10.This preview image was one of those that didn’t meet my demands of quality. Still, I though I could spice it up a little in Lightroom so I created this new preset called “PH Dramatic Ocean”. It’s a mix of two graduated filters tuning the horizon (above and below) + some more adjustments ;-) .

Preset in action

SOOC/ORIGINAL:

PH Dramatic Ocean:

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In my example photo, the lower part of the photo is very dark. Almost to dark to see the details at all. I could lighten it up using brightness and contrast in Lightroom, but that would affect the whole image and result in a very bright sky instead.

To fix this issue I use graduated filters which can be found under the “Develop” tab in Lightroom.

See the preset in action:

SOOC/ORIGINAL:

PH Graduated Horisont:

Graduated filters can be used with the same effects as the “Adjustmen Brush“. With this in mind I have added a blue color tone on the filter for the sky to make it more dramatic.

Play around
Your horizon might be on a different position in the photo. Luckily you can replace the graduated filters to fit your own horizon.

If you would like to change the brightness or contrast (or any other effect) you can easily do that too.

Finally you might want to change the color of the sky…