Benefits
of the plugin

Apply one or two graduated colors in either uniform or photographic mode
Set the direction of the graduation to any angle of 360 degrees
Control the contrast and midpoint of the graduation
Target retouching to lights, midtones or darks independently

The Graduated Color plugin works with these image modes (Windows and Mac)...
8 & 16 bit / channel: RGB, CMYK, Multichannel.

Graduated Color controls

This is the Graduated Color plugins controlpanel (Windows). Click on the image to enlarge. The controlpanel and preview area can be changed by dragging the sides.

It has four groups of controls:

1. Direction, contrast, midpoint
2. Color one
3. Color two
4. Retouch levels: target lights, midtones or darks

Examples -

The Graduated Color plugin is an advanced digital version of traditional graduated color filters. In combination with retouch levels it can be used to tone the light.

The Controls

Light

Direction

Contrast

Midpoint

Direction will rotate the direction of the graduation within a full circle. The slider ranges from -180 to 180 degrees. 0 is top vertical. +/-180 bottom vertical. -90 is left horizontal and 90 is right horizontal.

Checking Show Direction will draw a line from the center of the preview in the direction of color one. This will only appear on the preview.

Contrast will determine the fade-out of the one or two colors and how hard they approach the midpoint. In the following example we only used color one.

Midpoint will determine the ratio between color one and color two. If you only have one color, it will spread the color more or less over the image depending on contrast. In the following examples contrast was set high, to 50 in all cases, for the sake of clarity. Again please remember the subtle graduations get lost when compressing the images for the web.

Color One & Color Two

Use Color picker

Yellow - Violet


Blue green - Pink

Comp.

The plugin allows you to have one or two colors opposite each other. By checking "Color One" or "Color Two" you turn either color on.The long colored rectangle shows the filter color. You can change the filter color in four ways:

1. Use Color picker. When checked, this will add the color of the small rectangle to the filter color. If you activate a color picker, you can click in the rectangle to get a standard color picker dialog from which to choose a color.

2. Yellow - Violet slider. This will change the filter color with either of the complementary colors yellow or violet.

3. Blue green - Pink slider. This will change the filter color with either of the complementary colors blue green or pink.

4. Complementary button (Comp.). Clicking this button will set the color to the complementary of the other filter color. If you click "Comp." for Color Two, then color picker two will be set to the complementary of color picker one, and the two sliders will be set to the complementary of the sliders for Color One.

The filter color will be the sum of the two sliders and of the color picker, if "Use Color picker" is checked. This last detail means you can switch between two variations by adding, or not adding, the color from the color picker.

Retouch Levels

Retouch Levels is common to many Powerretouche plugins. It lets you target the effect to various values of the image.

Target Saturation lets you control how the color effect should be applied to saturated and/or unsaturated colors.

Adding a Blue Sky

Retouching the Illumination