Colour & Look

Choose the colour change you need

Develop → Colour & Look contains eleven tools. Use White balance in Light & Tone to correct the overall illuminant first. Then choose a tool by the change you want: a tonal colour push, one hue family, a full reference look or a named profile/film rendering. Use a Local Colour Range mask when a global colour change would also affect similar colours elsewhere.

RGB primaries

Specialist tool — enable it through Customise tools.

What it does. Changes the hue and purity of the red, green and blue primaries used in the colour transformation. Because real colours mix these primaries, its influence is broad. Use it for an overall colour response or palette, rather than a narrowly isolated red object.

Try it. Adjust one primary slightly on an image with skin, foliage and a neutral object. Check all three, not just the colour you hoped to change. Use Colour mixer if the broad interaction is too strong.

Watch for. This is not camera calibration and does not automatically make inaccurate colour correct. Extreme settings can push colours beyond the output range. Neutral areas deserve a check when using the tint controls.

Image Match

What it does. Analyses a reference and builds an editable exposure, white-balance, tone, colour and optional grain correction for a target. Use Consistency for related images from a shoot, or Creative Look for a more deliberate palette/contrast transfer. It works locally and does not generate objects.

Try it. Capture a well-edited reference from the same shoot. Open another image, choose Consistency and enable the components it actually needs. Preview first, reduce Colour/Tone strength if skin or contrast shifts too far, then Apply. Test a few varied frames before Match selection.

Watch for. A reference is not a guarantee of identical results across different scenes. Grain analysis adds estimated missing grain; it does not denoise a target that is already noisier. Unreliable texture/compression samples may be rejected. Full Image Match lesson.

Primary correction

What it does. Uses Lift, Gamma, Gain and Offset wheels to alter colour and brightness across overlapping tonal ranges. Use it for a subtle shadow/highlight grade, broad colour balance or tonal finishing after the basic correction.

Try it. Balance the overall image with a small Offset correction. Use Lift to refine the blacks, Gain for bright tones and Gamma for midtones. For a cool-shadow/warm-highlight grade, make small opposing Lift/Gain pushes and compare skin plus neutral objects.

Watch for. These ranges overlap; Lift is not a hard shadow-only selection. Primary correction runs after Tone/Film tone, but before Print stock when a stock is active, so the same wheel settings can look different under a film rendering. Shift-drag gives fine movement; Ctrl-drag locks hue while changing strength. Wheel gestures and examples.

Vibrance & saturation

What it does. Changes existing colour intensity across the photo. Use it when the overall picture feels too flat or too loud, rather than to choose a new colour cast.

Try it. Give a flat landscape a small Vibrance increase, then check sky and flowers for excessive colour. For a deliberately quiet portrait, lower Saturation slightly and verify lips/skin remain natural.

Watch for. Saturation cannot repair wrong white balance. A strong hue rotation affects skin as well as scenery. Bypassing the shared effect can also remove Light's contrast contribution; use individual value resets for a fair single-control comparison.

Colour mixer

What it does. Changes hue, saturation and luminance for eight colour bands across the whole image. Use it to darken a blue sky, soften orange skin saturation or shift green foliage without moving every colour together.

Try it. Choose the Luminance tab and lower the Blue row a little on a sky. Check blue clothing and reflections too: they are in the same global hue family. If only the sky should change, use a mask.

Watch for. Large luminance changes can reveal noise or banding in smooth coloured regions. Adjacent hue families may require a gentler shared adjustment.

Selective colour

What it does. Offers another hue-family correction with smoothing and neutral protection. Use it when you need more control over transitions and edge behaviour than the simpler Colour mixer provides.

Try it. Reduce an overly strong foliage green, then inspect leaf edges and nearby grey surfaces. Refine neutral protection and smoothing only if you see unwanted spill or rough transitions.

Watch for. This is still a global colour selection, not a spatial object mask. A grey with very little colour may deliberately resist the adjustment when neutral protection is high.

Lab colour

What it does. Works on two colour axes while leaving Lab lightness alone. Use it to separate muted colours, enrich one side of a colour axis or remove a remaining green/magenta or blue/yellow cast.

Try it. Increase Colour separation a little on a muted landscape. If only foliage needs more distinction, return the overall slider and try Greens. Check neutral clouds as well as the colourful areas.

Watch for. Most real colours lie close to the centre of Lab curves; small moves matter. A hand-shaped curve may no longer be representable by the sliders: a note explains this, and moving a slider replaces the manual shape. Lab colour shares the Lab tone-curve module with Tone regions; copied module presets can include both. Lab curve explanation.

Black and white

What it does. Converts colour to monochrome while letting the original colours determine different grey brightnesses. Use it to separate a face from foliage, or darken a blue sky, without changing the whole photograph equally.

Try it. Lower Blues to deepen a sky and raise Oranges slightly to brighten a face. Check the boundaries between skin, hair and background for unnatural tonal separation.

Watch for. Raising one colour too far can make skin or fabric unnaturally pale; lowering it too far can expose noise. Another monochrome profile or stock can still keep the image monochrome after this tool is bypassed.

Creative profile

What it does. Applies an independent colour look after film rendering, while keeping exposure, white balance and film settings. Use it for a reusable finishing palette or an imported supported profile.

Try it. Choose a built-in on an already balanced image, compare at Amount 100, then lower Amount until the subject still looks convincing. A profile is a starting look, not a reason to lose useful skin or highlight detail.

Watch for. Enhanced XMP profiles supply their own colour space and Amount limits. Their Amount 0 can still represent a nonzero minimum; fixed-amount profiles hide the slider. Imported Cube tables must be supported 3D tables without a 1D shaper. Camera-log transforms need conversion to a supported input space first. Retain imported assets when moving edits between machines.

Print stock

What it does. Supplies a full film-inspired colour and tone rendering for digital viewing. Choose a stock for its palette/contrast, then refine the result. It is a simulation, not a promise that the photograph exactly reproduces a physical camera-negative-print chain. Grain and halation are separate tools.

Try it. Compare two stocks at 100% Strength on the same corrected photograph. Choose for colour and tone first, then reduce Strength if needed. Refine the three colour-balance controls before adding Grain or Halation.

Watch for. Selecting a stock switches off the competing tone mapper in the same edit; the stock becomes the rendering. Editing Tone mapping or Film tone replaces it. Use Light → Contrast to keep the stock. Turning Print stock off restores the previous tone mapper as appropriate. Many grading/effect controls feed the print, so their appearance changes with the chosen stock. Film workflow and stock notes.

LUT

What it does. Applies a colour lookup table supplied as a file. Use it for a particular supported external look when you know the table's expected input colour space.

Try it. Start with a balanced image and a known table. Choose the documented colour space, then inspect skin, white objects and smooth skies. If it looks wildly wrong, check the required input rather than correcting the mistake with more sliders.

Watch for. A LUT does not know your subject and cannot recover clipping. Do not feed a camera-log transform ordinary developed RGB unless it was designed for that input. The standalone LUT tool is distinct from Creative profile, which offers a library and Amount control. Retain the referenced table when transferring edits.