The Graduated Filter is a wonderful tool. But I would like to see it have more ability. Like when you want to add ‘Contrast’ to one side (area) of your photo. Right now the ‘graduated’ filter has it’s own ‘Strength’ in darkening… but it doesn’t have much feature control. I may want slightly different lighting controls for that area… It would be nice to be able to bend the ‘tongs’ more, so that you can define the area (not in a precise way…) but at least maybe in different shapes. Right now it is always a ‘Flat’ angled shape that you can turn.
I can achieve what I want in difficult ways in another editor using layers, or by using a selection tool (then doing the contrast changes…) Then repairing the seems later, which takes work, sometimes using AI.
But it would be much easier to just use a tool that would apply more specific filtering in a graduated manner. Hence expanding the ‘Graduated Filter’… seems like a logical choice.