Control visual focus with the Gradient tool

There are times when visual clutter in a digital photo is good, especially when it's used to convey a sense of complexity or disorder. But generally, just as its name suggests, visual clutter tends to confuse the viewer and muddle your message. This is why we try to avoid it when composing a photo.

But there are times when no amount of framing, cropping, or selective focus will keep your composition simple. This can be due to any number of factors, such as available lighting, lack of setup time, or even subject location, as shown in Figure A. But whatever your obstacles, one way you can control the visual focus in your images is with Photoshop's Gradient tool. Not only is it easy to use, but it provides a very naturalistic result, as shown in Figure B.

Figure A.

Figure B.

Finding your focus

A prominent foreground subject set against an increasingly softer middle ground and background has been a technique used not only by photographers of the last two centuries, but also by master painters throughout the history of Western Europe to add drama and perspective to their artwork.

Let's start by launching Photoshop and opening an image that has an obvious foreground, middle ground, and background, but doesn't have an apparent visual focus, such as the one shown in Figure A.

Planning your moves

The first thing you must do is determine exactly what your visual focus is and, in turn, which subject areas you want more clearly identified as fore-, mid-, and background. The visual order of areas in our example image is the clump of aspen leaves in the foreground; the tree trunk and branches in the mid ground, and the distant set of leaves and sky in the background, as shown in Figure C. As is, it's difficult to discern this order, so we'll isolate them in a way to differentiate that the three subject areas are in the foreground, mid ground, and background.

Figure C.

Splitting your areas

Next, we'll need to split off the various areas of the photo so we can apply a gradient to each using the Gradient tool. There are a couple of ways you can accomplish this. You can make duplicate layers of the Background layer, one for each interest area, and erase the part you don't want. Or, by using the Pen tool, you can create a path you can use to select and copy each area onto a separate layer. Since the Pen tool method is more flexible and precise, we'll use that.

Plotting your paths

1.	Click on the Paths palette, or choose Window Paths from the menu bar, if it isnt already showing, and select New Path from the Paths palette's pop-up menu.
2.	Enter background in the Name text box when the New Path dialog box appears, and then click OK.
3.	Select the Pen tool from the Toolbox and place your mouse pointer on your canvas. The area you start with is up to you, but for this example, begin with the background and move forward. The background in our example is the sky and the most distant set of leaves.
4.	Move the Pen tool off the canvas, set an anchor point, and then move back onto the canvas and set anchor points at places where the background and mid ground meet, as shown in Figure D on the previous page. Figure D.
5.	Close the path by clicking on the first anchor point you made.
6.	Repeat the process again for the mid ground area. Name this path mid ground.

Converting a path to a selection border

Now we'll apply a gradient to a new layer using a path converted to a selection border as a mask. You can change the selection border at any time by changing the path and converting it to a selection border again. Let's first work with the background area.

1.	Select New Layer from the Layers palette's pop-up menu.
2.	Enter background area in the Name text box in the New Layer dialog box, and then click OK.
3.	Select the background area path from the Paths palette.
4.	Click the Load Path As A Selection button and you'll notice that in your canvas, the background path outline has changed to a marquee outline, indicating that it's now a selection border.

Applying a gradient to a layer

1.	Select the Gradient tool from the Toolbox, and on the tool options bar, click the Linear Gradient button to select it.
2.	Select the Foreground To Transparent preset gradient fill swatch from the Gradient Picker dropdown list, as shown in Figure E. Figure E.
3.	Go to the Swatches palette and select the white swatch.
4.	Choose Select Inverse, then Select Feather, and in the Feather Selection dialog box, enter x Pixels text box and click OK.
5.	Position your mouse pointer off the canvas above your image, and while holding down your mouse button, drag a gradient fill straight down to a point just past the selection border, as shown in Figure F. Figure F.
6.	Release the mouse button; you've now applied a gradient to the background area layer, as shown in Figure G. Figure G.

Note

Why start off the canvas? When you draw a linear gradient using the preset Foreground To Transparent gradient, it's 100% opaque at its starting point and 100% transparent at its end point. Since you only want to include a portion of the transparent section, you start your gradient fill off the canvas.

At this point, let's work on the mid ground area, repeating the same process we used for the background area.

1.	Select New Layer from the Layers palette's pop-up menu.
2.	Enter mid ground area in the Name text box of the New Layer dialog box, and then click OK.
3.	Select the mid ground area path in the Paths palette.
4.	Click the Load Path As A Selection button.
5.	Position your mouse pointer off canvas above your image and drag a gradient fill straight down to a point just past the selection border.
6.	Release and a gradient is applied to the mid ground layer, as shown in Figure H. Figure H.

Making the final adjustments

The last thing you must do is step back, look at your photo, and check to see if you've accomplished the result you're looking for. Our photo example is close, but not quite there yet. Both the mid ground gradient and the background gradient are too strong. Since the gradients are on individual layers, each is easy to adjust by changing the Opacity settings in the Layers palette.

To cut back on the mid ground area gradient:

1.	Select the mid ground layer from the Layers palette.
2.	Adjust the Opacity slider to about 80%, as shown in Figure I. Figure I.
3.	Repeat for the background area layer, as we did for Figure J. Figure J.

Great gradients

Gradients are a great way to control the visual focus in your photos. Using Photoshop's Gradient tool, selection borders, and layers, gradients are quick to make, easy to apply, and nicely controllable, which gives you a powerful way to strengthen otherwise less-than-ideal images.