Accurate color control can transform average photos into striking images. Lightroom’s color adjustment tools helps you emphasize specific elements, making your pictures more vibrant without compromising realism.
Coming to you from Aaron Nace with Phlearn, this practical video walks you through how to achieve precise color adjustments using Lightroom Classic. Nace begins by demonstrating basic edits like hitting the Auto button, quickly enhancing shadows and highlights to balance exposure. While Auto provides a decent starting point, it treats the entire photo uniformly, which isn’t always ideal. Individual elements—like the yellow foliage, green trees, or blue skies—might need specific adjustments beyond basic corrections. Instead of boosting general vibrance or saturation across the board, Nace shows you how to target each color separately, creating a nuanced, balanced look.
The key tool Nace highlights is Lightroom's Color Mixer panel, specifically using Hue, Saturation, and Luminance (HSL) controls. He emphasizes how using the interactive adjustment tool within HSL is more intuitive than sliders alone. By clicking directly on your image, Lightroom identifies exactly which colors you’re adjusting—useful since scenes often contain unexpected color mixes. For example, trees aren't just green; they often contain subtle yellows or oranges. Adjusting these individually prevents overly artificial-looking edits. Nace clearly explains how small tweaks in saturation or luminance can drastically enhance specific parts of your photo, guiding the viewer's eye precisely where you want it.
Beyond basic color adjustments, Nace introduces Point Color, a lesser-known Lightroom feature. This allows you to pick an exact shade in your image using an eyedropper, then precisely adjust its hue, saturation, and brightness without altering nearby tones. It’s ideal when you want fine control over particular elements—like making autumn leaves stand out without affecting adjacent colors. He also suggests that using Point Color alongside HSL gives you maximum flexibility, especially when subtlety matters.
Nace further discusses Lightroom’s Calibration panel, another valuable but often overlooked tool. While he typically doesn't use it heavily himself, Nace explains how Calibration lets you subtly shift primary red, green, and blue tones across the entire image. This panel can enhance colors in ways standard HSL adjustments can't quite reach, useful for adding gentle warmth or coolness without sacrificing natural appearances.
Throughout the tutorial, Nace reinforces the importance of starting your edits with Auto adjustments, then progressively refining color with HSL, Point Color, and Calibration. He avoids broad-brush solutions, cautioning against simply turning up global vibrance or saturation. Instead, the approach he shares encourages careful, deliberate decisions, enhancing only the colors that truly improve your composition and storytelling.
Ultimately, this tutorial isn’t about flashy editing tricks—it’s about thoughtfully selecting which colors matter most and making subtle, intentional adjustments. The result is a more balanced, natural-looking image that still pops, highlighting precisely what drew your attention when capturing the photo. Check out the video above for the full rundown from Nace.
