An image of two halves
Snettisham Beach, Norfolk
This image is made up of two shots exposed at nearly three stops apart, with the two blended perfectly. This technique is ideal for both photographers who don’t have ND grads, but also those who don’t want to carry filters or use HDR at a particular location. Split raw is the closest you can get to ND grads without actually using them. If you’re working with an image that has an uneven horizon or elements of the scene protruding into the sky, you can use brush opacity and a large soft brush when you mask in the darker sky image, to mimic the graduation of an ND grad.