The Virtual Lens Filter

The Virtual Lens Filter

Suppose a shot (or some portion of it) should simply be
“warmer” or “cooler.” With only a camera and some fi lm,
you might accomplish this transformation by adding a lens
fi lter. It could be a solid color (blue for cooler, amber to
warm things up) or a gradient (amber to white to change
only the color of a sky above the horizon).
Add a colored solid and set its blending mode to Color.
Choose a color that is pleasing to your eye, with brightness
and saturation well above 50%. Use blue or green for a
cooler look, red or yellow for a warmer one.

At 100%, this is the equivalent of a full-color tint of the image,
which is too much. Dial Opacity down between 10% and
50%, seeking the threshold where the source colors remain
discernable, fi ltered by the added color to set the look.
To re-create a graded fi lter, typically used to affect only the
sky, apply the Ramp effect to the solid and change the Start
Color to your tint color; an amber fi lter adds the look of an
extremely smoggy urban day. This is best applied with an
Add or Screen mode instead of Color because the default
End Color, white, desaturates the lower part of the image.