Lightroom Tip: Saturation

Sometimes, I want to add more saturation to my images and neither the Saturation nor the Vibrance control will help - they affect the entire range of colors in an image, which is too much. Tweaking the individual colors in the HSL panel on the other hand is not enough and their effect is too isolated.

Luckily, there's an "in-between" way of altering the saturation: the "Primary" controls in the Camera Calibration panel. It's necessary to play with them to understand how they work, and it's good to remember how each individual pixel and it's color are actually the result of de-mosaicing the Bayer pattern - you wouldn't expect the Blue Primary to have an effect on the green, orange and yellow colors, but that's what happens.

Here's a quick example, a scene from a recent hike to Corte Madera Peak in San Diego's back country. From my point of view, we were extremely lucky with the weather: once we reached the summit, a set of clouds moved in like a gentle veil that muted all colors and took the surrounding hills entirely out of view. That's just the conditions that I'm looking for, because it allows to concentrate on the visible subjects without distraction.

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Above is the "almost final" image - it's nice, but I found something missing for that final "pop". It lacks the extra boost of color which was applied to the "final" version by increasing the Blue Primary saturation to +70, which is shown below. You can switch back and forth between the two images in the Lightbox (just click on the photo). The difference might appear subtle to some, but it's often these subtle differences that really "make" an image, right?



I hope you found this little tip helpful and that it encourages you to really explore all the options that Lightroom has to offer - don't fear to tweak whatever you want. CTRL-Z is your friend! ;)

PS: the image is also part of my "The Veil" set over on my main website. Have a look!