Tip - Changing Direction of the Graduated Filter
Here's a tip I picked up from Scott Kelby recently. If you're dragging a Graduated filter gradient on to your photo you can quickly change the direction of the gradient by pressing the apostrophe key. For example, if you drag from the top of the photo toward the bottom, whatever effects you've got set will appear at the top and gradiate downward. However, if you press the apostrophe key you can reverse it. It also works after you've already created a gradient. Just target the little meatball dot that appears on your photo and try pressing apostrophe and Lightroom will reverse the gradient there too. Cool little tip huh? Thanks Scott!
Well, I hope you all have a great weekend. I'm in the airport now heading to Philadelphia (and New Jersey) to run a half marathon with my brother and sister this weekend. Wish me luck!
Get your weekly dose of the coolest Adobe® Lightroom tutorials, tips, time-saving shortcuts, photographic inspiration, and undocumented tricks with Matt Kloskowski from 
November 21st, 2008 at 10:00 am
Good luck on the Marathon and thanks for the tip. Enjoying your video on Kelby Training on CS4 layers as I type
Mike S.
November 21st, 2008 at 10:41 am
Matt!!!! I just wanted to say that you (and Scott) and the flippin shizzle!!! I have just purchased LR2 and am moving over from Aperture2 because LR runs so much better on my Macbook and is much easier to use for me!
Anyways…it seems like anytime I have a question or get stuck as I am importing and getting everything set up, you have the answer!!! I love the way you guys explain things is such an easy to understand way!
I just wanted to say thanks!
Will yall be doing any in person stuff in the Columbus/Dayton Ohio Area?
TBISH
November 21st, 2008 at 10:54 am
l
Little meatball dot?
Now this is brilliant!
Thanks for all the tips and videos. LR2 makes my photography efforts worthwhile
Good luck running in freezing weather on the East Coast.
November 21st, 2008 at 11:01 am
Good tip, I’ll try it. Another tip on the gradient was to press the space key when dragging down if you want a parallel gradient. Sometimes when I do that the ‘X’ changes to a hand and everything gets jumpy. What’s that about?
November 21st, 2008 at 11:22 am
Another tip…
(for Vista users)
I’d been having continuing problems with slow response times on the adjustment brush on my laptop fitted with 4GB. what I found helped was using a spare 4GB SD card as readyboost… speeded up considerably
just a thought… wouldn’t automask on the gradient be a nice thing… or the ability to erase parts of it
November 21st, 2008 at 12:16 pm
Hey Matt-
I have a question that may not be solveable in Lightroom, but I’ll ask anyway. Are there any good tips, tricks, or presets that I can use to make sure I’m getting good skin tones? I wouldn’t say I’m having big problems with them, but when I shoot in various lighting situations with my white balance on Auto, sometimes my skin coloring varies. I want to make sure they’re right for printing after I’ve made my edits to white balance and saturation levels. I feel like the answer may lay in the tone curve, which I’ve never been that great with.
November 21st, 2008 at 1:16 pm
Great little tip Matt! You gotta love shortcut keys!
Have fun in Philly!
November 21st, 2008 at 1:52 pm
Thanks for the great tip Matt! I’m going to put it use. Hope the run goes well.
November 21st, 2008 at 2:51 pm
Sometimes it is the small things that make life so much easier. Thanks
November 21st, 2008 at 3:04 pm
Good luck in the marathon, just watch out for those guys from Kenya I don’t think they ever stop running!
Thanks for all the great work you do, it’s much appreciated!
November 21st, 2008 at 9:31 pm
Good luck Matt and stay safe. Also thanks for all you do in helping the community.
November 22nd, 2008 at 2:37 pm
thanks for the tip, Matt. Good luck on the run!
November 23rd, 2008 at 10:41 pm
Matt,
Great tip as usual! Had I known there was a marathon in the city I would have come out and cheered you on! (and maybe gotten some more tips)
Hope you did well.
November 25th, 2008 at 9:14 am
Another good tip, though it would be nice if the help tip appeared when hovering over the icon, why? because between this site and the many other great ones, there must be thousands of these tips and remembering them all is quite difficult.
November 25th, 2008 at 9:44 pm
Matt!!!
You are a life saver!! I have been experimenting with the graduated filter for a few weeks and couldn’t figure out how to align it properly. The apostrophe tip was right on time too. Thanks again!!
Oh yes, I purchased Sean’s graduated filters too, they’re a great starting point and easy to edit.