How to Use the Hue, Saturation, and Luminance (HSL) Panel to Control Color in Lightroom

If you’ve never dared to explore the Hue, Saturation, and Luminosity (HSL) panel in Adobe Lightroom, don’t worry, you’re probably not alone. This short video is an excellent introduction to help you learn where to start.

This great video from Mango Street gives you a ton of information to help you get started. Though perhaps not quite as intimidating as the Tone Curve panel (check out this tutorial, also from Mango Street), Lightroom’s HSL/Color panel can look somewhat complex at first glance. Possibly one of the first things to learn is that there are several ways to achieve the same adjustment. It’s worth being careful of how making changes to, say, skin tone could have implications throughout the image. Changes to the orange hue, saturation, and luminance will be most pronounced in the skin, but if there’s orange elsewhere in the image, that will be changed as well. This is where software such as Capture One Pro can be an advantage, as it allows you to create a layer, mask out which areas you want to edit, and then make your changes.

If you’ve more suggestions on how to get started with the HSL/Color panel, be sure to leave a comment below.

Andy Day's picture

Andy Day is a British photographer and writer living in France. He began photographing parkour in 2003 and has been doing weird things in the city and elsewhere ever since. He's addicted to climbing and owns a fairly useless dog. He has an MA in Sociology & Photography which often makes him ponder what all of this really means.

Log in or register to post comments
1 Comment

LR is a great program for amateurs and beginners.