How to Make Your Photos Look Professional with Filters

Are you looking for ways to make your photos look more professional? Filters can be a great way to enhance the look of your photos and make them stand out. Neutral density filters, graduated neutral density filters, graduated color filters, and infrared filters are all popular options for photographers. In addition, there are a variety of photo editing apps that can help you adjust the contrast, brightness, and other elements of your photos. Neutral density filters are used to reduce the amount of light entering the camera lens.

They come in a range of intensities from ND2 to ND1000 and beyond. These filters are mainly used for portrait and landscape photography, with the strongest ND filters used in landscape photography. Graduated neutral density filters are mainly used by landscape photographers. They darken the sky during sunrise and sunset to balance the exposure of the sky relative to the foreground.

While it is possible to replicate the effects of a graduated neutral density filter through HDR techniques, some photographers prefer to create their photos from a single image and often use GND filters in the field. Graduated color filters work similarly to graduated neutral density filters, but instead of reducing light, they add color. These filters are used to improve color in the sky, such as making a sunset sky more spectacular by making it orange or red. Other graduated color filters add sepia to the upper half of the photo, or one color to the bottom and another color to the top by stacking two filters together.

Infrared filters appear black because the human eye cannot see the infrared spectrum of light. Most cameras block infrared light from reaching the sensor to a certain extent, and the stronger the blocking, the less effective an infrared filter will be. A popular filter for infrared photography is the Hoya R72 infrared filter. There are also a variety of photo editing apps that can help you adjust contrast, saturation, grain, and fade.

The “recipes” tool allows you to save your favorite combination of edits. Darkroom is an excellent option to edit several photos at once and comes with 10 free preset filters (pay to upgrade your account and you'll get access to more than 200). You can also use Darkroom to create Siri shortcuts, edit RAW or live photos, manage hashtags related to your photos, synchronize your entire photo album, and choose frames for your photos based on the color scheme and other elements. Hootsuite's image editor allows you to resize your photos according to pre-established social media requirements, including Instagram. With Fotor's image editor, you can adjust both tint and temperature of a photo by looking at “Color” and adjusting the sliders.

The application also has more than 150 textures, allows you to stack infinite filter layers, and has standard editing tools such as exposure, contrast, and hue. If you're looking for ways to make your photos look more professional, consider using neutral density filters, graduated neutral density filters, graduated color filters, infrared filters, or photo editing apps. With these tools at your disposal, you can take your photography skills (and your participation) to new heights.

Letícia Summerour
Letícia Summerour

Certified music lover. Wannabe pizza ninja. General food lover. Typical music lover. Avid pop culture nerd. Wannabe beer specialist.