CPL filters: What they are and how to use them effectively

By Anthony Thurston Published June 10, 2016

How to Use a Circular Polarizing Filter (CPL) Like a Champ

One of the few things that still separates professional photographers from your average Joes is the use of filters to enhance images. It’s not that only professionals can get filters — its more that professionals, in general, know how to use them, while average consumers don’t. One of those filters is the Circular Polarizer, also known as the CPL. It is one filter that still has a clear use in the digital age, and has a very noticeable effect on an image created with it.

YouTuber Joshua Cripps, through his Professional Photography Tips channel, recently released a great video detailing exactly what CPL filters are, when to use them, and how to do it. It’s a great crash course for anyone new to photography or filters that is looking to get a quick education on how to take advantage of these incredible photographic tools.

camera-lens-filter — Alexandco/123RF

Alexandco/123RF

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As shown in the video, Circular Polarizing filters are great landscape and outdoor photography where reflections can impact an image. Some great examples of situations like this would be shooting a waterfall, creek, or lake. The reflections from the water can cause issues in an image, so by utilizing a CPL filter, which filters out scattered light, you are able to cut through those reflections and see the detail behind it. In the situations mentioned above, it would cause rocks around the waterfall to have more detail, allowing you to see the creek or lake bed under the surface of the water, rather than a reflection of the sky you would normally get without the filter.

CPL filters are not all that expensive either, and depending on the size of your lens you can pick up a decent-quality filter — not the best, but not the worst either — for less than $50, easy. That may seem expensive for what is essentially a piece of glass you screw into the front of your lens but as the video above shows you, the results speak for themselves.

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Anthony Thurston

Former Digital Trends Contributor

Anthony is an internationally published photographer based in the beautiful Pacific Northwest. Specializing primarily in…

Social Media

How to use Snapchat filters

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Since 2014, the social media app, Snapchat, has been updating the app with new, fun features. In addition to the drawing tool, users can apply a number of themed stickers to their snaps. Snapchat's most popular feature by far, though, is its filters. With Snapchat's face-detecting lens technology, you can make yourself old, add beauty filters, or give yourself cat ears and whiskers. The list of available filters goes on and on, with more added every day, especially now that users can create and upload their own. Filters are awesome, but they can seem confusing if you don't know how to use them. Luckily, we're here to show you!
Give permission
First things first: In order to access all of Snapchat's filters, you first need to enable them. Head to the app's settings (from the main viewfinder, tap your profile pic in the upper-left corner, followed by the gear icon in the upper-right corner), and then select Permissions (under Privacy). From there, enable the camera permissions. Some filters require geolocation to be enabled, so go ahead and turn that on in your phone's settings as well.
Using filters
Once everything is enabled, you're all ready to start filtering. Head back to the viewfinder and tap the screen. Your camera will take a second to adjust and map your surroundings, then a series of circles will appear to the right of the photo-taking button. Each of the circles contains a little preview of what the filter might be like; tap on one of these to select it (or swipe to scroll through several at once), and the app will apply the filter. The list of filters is refreshed daily, so if you can't find one you like, check back later (some popular choices, though, are semi-permanent).

Some filters are completely autonomous, while some require you to perform an action, like tapping on the screen or looking around in different directions. Snapchat is great at giving clear instructions on how to activate filters, and many of them are downright hilarious. For instance, one filter placed a chicken on the screen, which we could then drag around in 3D space; other filters filled the screen with digital bubbles, or little floating balloons with cat faces.
Lenses
Perhaps more popular and ubiquitous than Snapchat's area filters is the "lens" feature, which uses face detection technology to apply filters to users' faces via the phone's front "selfie" camera. The process here works the same way: Aim the camera at your face (it should be easy, since you'll be displayed on-screen), tap the screen, and wait for the list of filters to appear. Here, you'll find filters that warp your visage in creative ways and filters that add goofy aftereffects.

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The Hero is waterproof and combines GoPro's simplest user interface with 4K video, 2x slo-mo at 2.7K resolution, and 12-megapixel photos. It is available on retail shelves around the world and online at GoPro's website.

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