Reduce distractions with Linear Gradient

- [Instructor] Our eyes are drawn to … the brightest areas of a photograph. … Most often we want that to be … somewhere in the center of the frame. … Not along the edges like this bright spot … in the upper left hand corner. … This is distracting … because it's the brightest spot in the image. … I could crop it out, … but then that would hurt the composition. … I really like the space … that the young gorilla has to gaze into. … I could apply a vignette, … but vignettes are applied evenly around the edges … with only the control to lighten or darken. … So in this situation I prefer to use a linear gradient. … Linear gradient is the fifth tool down, … or you can jump there with the L key on your keyboard. … To apply a linear gradient, you just click and drag out. … What's happening here is … it's applying a mask. … If I hover over this center dot we can see that mask. … The center line here would represent 50% … of whatever edit you applied. … This would be 100% of the edit, and this would be zero. …