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Dan Rodney/3 min read

Discrete Color Adjustments

Color Grading Steps

1

White Balance First

Get neutral colors right before any creative grading.

2

HSL Panel

Shift, lighten, or darken individual color ranges.

3

Color Grading

Set highlight, midtone, shadow color tints for mood.

4

Match Across the Set

Sync settings across selected images for consistency.

Master Adobe Tools at Noble Desktop

Noble Desktop's Graphic Design Certificate covers Photoshop alongside the broader Adobe toolkit that complements Lightroom in any photography workflow.

Learn to manipulate the colors in a photo by adjusting their luminance and saturation individually in this comprehensive Lightroom tutorial.

Topics Covered in This Lightroom Tutorial:

Adjusting Luminance, Adjusting Saturation

Exercise Preview

lightroom preview3G

Exercise Overview

In this exercise, you’ll learn how to adjust separate colors in a photo by adjusting their luminance and saturation discretely—in other words, one at a time.

Adjusting Luminance

  1. If you have not imported the photos that were imported in Exercise 2E:
    • Go into the Library module.
    • At the bottom left of the screen, click Import.
    • In the dialog box that appears, on the left under Source, navigate to Desktop > Class Files > Lightroom Class and select the Develop folder.
    • At the top, above the photos, make sure Add is selected (highlighted).
    • On the bottom right, click Import.

  2. In the Library module, in the Catalog panel to the left, click on Previous Import.

  3. Click on the second swan photo (_CAS4927).

  4. Press D to go into the Develop module.

  5. In the Navigator panel, click on FIT (if it isn’t already highlighted).

  6. Expand the HSL / Color / B & W panel on the right side.

  7. Make sure HSL is highlighted.

  8. In the options immediately below HSL, click on Luminance if it isn’t already selected. Luminance is a measure of lightness and darkness of various colors.

  9. At the top-left corner of the panel, click the Targeted Adjustment tool target adjustment tool.

  10. Click on a blue part of the sky. We’re going to darken it.

  11. Press the Down Arrow key about 8 times. Note that the Aqua and Blue values change in the panel too.

  12. At the top-left corner of the HSL / Color / B & W panel, toggle the Switch switch icon off and on to view the changes, leaving it on before proceeding to the next step.

Adjusting Saturation

Let’s adjust the saturation of the yellows and greens in the photo, and then the luminance again.

  1. In the HSL / Color / B & W panel, click on Saturation.

  2. Drag the Yellow slider all the way to the right, to + 100.

  3. That’s maybe a little too dramatic.

    Drag the Yellow slider back to the left to + 60.

  4. Click the Switch switch icon off and on a few times to scope out your work, leaving it on before proceeding to the next step.

  5. Click on Luminance.

  6. At the top-left corner of the panel, if the Targeted Adjustment tool target adjustment tool isn’t still selected, click on it.

  7. Near the bottom of the photo, click on the grass.

  8. Press the Up Arrow key around 6−8 times.

  9. Below and to the right of the photo, click the Done button.

  10. Click the Before & After icon before after yy button to scope out your work on this photo.

    Very impressive!