How to do a selective darkening of part of a photo in Lightroom?

Question

I have a photo that has quite a distracting corner: if you divide it by the rule of thirds it's bit less than half of the bottom right corner.

Can I use Lightroom to darken that corner? I don't know; maybe with something like a gradient from black to transparent?

Answer 1

The feature you're looking for is the Adjustment Brush. With that, you would select:

• the amount of exposure, plus or minus
• the size of the brush, in pixels
• the feather, which controls the hardness of the edge,
• the flow, which controls the rate at which the adjustment is applied
• the density, which controls the strength of the adjustment (transparency)

Adobe Press has an article on doing this in Lightroom 3, but it will translate to other versions as well as Adobe Camera Raw for those of using Photoshop instead.

Answer 2

Yes, the gradient adjustment brush sounds like it will do exactly what you need. just adjust the exposure slider on the adjustment brush to taste. You can experiment until you find just the right combination.

If that doesn't work, then you will need to use another tool to complete your task. Maybe Photoshop, Nik's tools, or some other editor.