Editing 4 - Applying Filters

While experimenting with brightness, contrast and colour balance for a photo, the perfect result is often elusive. Filters can often provide a canned solution that can be achieved more quickly but will impact all colours across the entire image.

Some filters have artificial intelligence-type logic behind them and can adapt themselves to suit the image. For this reason, most editing tools will include a filter that is its best interpretation of the image, and this is often called "Auto". For people who don't want to be bothered with adjusting colours, contrast, etc, this is the "go-to" filter to use. Filters can also be used to produce special effects not possible without editing. In the example shown here, a filter called "Stardust" was used at 100% intensity. Most editing tools will offer a wide selection of filters for you to try, and some will even have options to download new ones from the Internet.