Why does some of the sunlight reflected off the ocean look like little stars? See our section on Star filters to find out.
Although many filters are designed to make an image look realistic and natural or to solve a specific problem, these same filters can be used creatively to help you achieve dramatic, unnatural-looking or bizarre effects in your images. In addition, there is a whole range of filters and other lens attachments specifically designed to alter the natural look of a scene and create unusual, attention-drawing images.
SOLID COLOR FILTERS
If you regularly shoot in black and white and have an array of B&W filters (solid colored filters) at hand, an easy way to get started in creative filter effects is to shoot color film with your solid-colored filters. Most color images that have an overall color cast will look like the photographer made a mistake and forgot to take the filter off when switching from black and white to color film. That is obviously not the effect you are after. Click on B&W filters for color film to get off on the right foot.
Four boats or one? One, in fact, photographed with a special effects multi-image filter.
SPECIAL EFFECTS FILTERS
Unlike the “must-have” working filters that are necessary to solve common problems, enhance images or make a scene seem natural-looking, special effects filters are selected at a much more personal level, based on individual taste and creative skill.
It is easy to make an image look hokey or kitsch-like by the tasteless application of the more extreme filters. Just slap on a six-faceted color prism filter and snap a picture of the cat to see what we mean. It is another matter to achieve a unique and tasteful image using special effects filters, requiring a good sense of composition and familiarity with the filter itself. That is the challenge photographers are presented with when using extreme special effect filters. Don’t take it too seriously, however. The wilder special effect filters are the photographer’s toys – they are for fun – permitting your sense of creativity to enter areas that would otherwise be closed to you. So have fun with them, and be prepared to laugh at some of the results you get.
A special-effects filter plays havoc with the sun's rays in this abstract image of a kissing couple.
There are two extremes of special effect filter – the bizarre and the practical – with a large number of filters straddling the border between the two.
Diffusion filters that can soften wrinkles in a portrait or lend a dream-like mood to a scene are examples of practical special effect filters. So too are star-effect filters that cause points of light to streak out across an image, adding sparkle and life to a scene. There is a place for such filters in serious photography and many photographers make regular use of them.
Filter manufacturers seem to sometimes compete with one another to see who can make the most bizarre filter. There are some strange ones out there – special effect filters that dramatically alter scenes, distorting and sometimes making the subject almost unrecognizable – while others are subtle, improving an image by a relatively-minor effect.
A fog filter can make a scene look.... well, foggy - an effect often used when photographing young couples to add an element of mystery, privacy or intimacy.
This section of photographytips.com provides information on special effect filters and other lens attachments that alter scenes, along with hints for their use. (Click on the links in the left-hand column.) Since the range is so wide and new filters and devices could be introduced at any time, it would be impossible to cover them all, so we have addressed those that seem to be most popular.
SEND US YOUR POINTERS ON SPECIAL EFFECT FILTERS
You may have come across a special effects filter that we missed and that our viewers would benefit from knowing about, or you may have your own tip on using special effect filters that we overlooked. Heck, you might even have created your very own special effects filter. We invite you to send us your tips and pointers on special effects filters along with a picture (ideally, two pictures - before and after) that you have taken to illustrate the effect. We will be sure to credit you as the source of the information and the creator of the images.
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