Lightroom Color Grade Tutorial

Color Grading Photos That POP In Adobe Lightroom

In this Lightroom Color Grade Tutorial, you’ll learn how to master color and make your photos pop using lightrooms color tools. Wondering how to color grade in Lightroom? Lightroom is incredible for editing colors and color grading your photos. Whether its because you want to know how to make your photos pop in Lightroom or how to make your photos look dark and moody, we’re going to unpack the nuts and bolts and look at the different ways to adjust color inside of Lightroom. If you’re after a Lightroom Color Grading Tutorial for beginners – This one is for you!

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[AUTO GENERATED]
hey guys Ryan here at signature edits
00:01
and today I’m going to show you how to
00:03
edit colors like a boss in Lightroom
00:05
let’s do it
00:06
[Music]
00:13
today we’re going to be looking at this
00:15
great image taken at the beach here’s
00:17
our before and here is our after I’m
00:19
going to show you how to do this so
00:21
starting at the very top we’re going to
00:23
adjust our exposure just to bring things
00:25
down a little bit because you can see
00:26
that the image starts off quite bright
00:28
next we’re going to just add some
00:30
contrast here and in Lightroom there are
00:32
multiple ways to do the same thing so I
00:34
don’t necessarily have to add the
00:35
contrast up here if I wanted I could go
00:37
to my tone curve hit three little points
00:40
here this is the blacks of the image
00:42
this is the whites so this is the
00:44
highlights mid-tones shadows I made a
00:46
point in each and by dragging our
00:47
mid-tones down that’ll reduce the
00:50
mid-tone contrast dragging it up will
00:51
increase it so you can see here’s before
00:53
and here’s after we’ve effectively done
00:56
the same thing as just increasing our
00:57
contrast up here but it’s slightly
00:59
different because we’re adjusting the
01:00
mid-tones instead of the entire image
01:02
contrast so whatever works better for
01:05
you the point is there are lots of ways
01:06
to adjust color and different settings
01:08
inside of Lightroom it just depends what
01:10
works best for your situation so
01:12
continuing down we’re going to add a
01:13
little bit of clarity just to bring out
01:15
the texture in those cliffs and just a
01:18
little D haze that’ll help add our color
01:20
saturation ever so slightly and make
01:22
that sky pop a little bit little
01:25
vibrance and maybe the slightest bit of
01:29
saturation okay so that’s our basic
01:30
adjustments next we’re going to go down
01:32
to our HSL panel which is where the real
01:34
color magic in lightroom happens this is
01:36
where you get the super stylized looks
01:38
they see on Instagram how well we head
01:41
to our hue panel and by clicking this
01:43
little drag er I can actually adjust any
01:45
section of my image by clicking and
01:47
dragging up or down so dragging up my
01:50
image is going to affect that particular
01:52
color the blue of the sky and make it
01:54
more purple dragging it down it makes it
01:56
more of a teal aqua color so we’re going
01:58
to be going for aqua today because it’s
01:59
more of a vintage sort of look plus
02:01
purple sky generally doesn’t happen on
02:04
earth so let’s go with the aqua today
02:05
great and by clicking on these cliffs I
02:09
can see what color range if you’re
02:10
watching here in the HSL panel is being
02:12
affected so I’m going to take my oranges
02:14
and my yellows up towards red a little
02:17
bit away from green perfect just like
02:21
that now next I’m going to adjust the
02:23
saturation level because my sky is
02:24
looking good but it’s
02:26
little bit extreme so I’m going to take
02:27
the Blues I can either do that by
02:29
clicking and dragging down and reduce
02:31
the saturation or I can just click this
02:35
little toggle bar and take it down a
02:37
little bit last I’m going to take my
02:39
luminance in this guy down just a little
02:41
and that’ll help get some of that color
02:43
back so that’s before the luminance and
02:45
after now I know this looks pretty silly
02:49
but we’re going to keep going and keep
02:50
playing with our colors again here’s
02:52
before and here where’s here’s what we
02:55
got too so far next if I wanted to I
02:57
could add some split toning to my image
02:58
that’s another way to add color we can
03:00
do that by adjusting my hue and taking
03:03
my saturation up and this will add color
03:05
to any of the highlights in my image so
03:07
let’s say that I want to make it a
03:08
little bit warmer and shadows same thing
03:11
let’s say that I want to go for that
03:12
you know orange and teal look that the
03:14
blockbuster movies are so famous for
03:16
well I can do that too let’s find a nice
03:19
teal here somewhere around there
03:21
and then take my saturation back down
03:23
now a great trick to do this if you
03:25
don’t want to take your saturation up
03:26
just so you can see what you’re doing
03:27
and then adjust it back down every time
03:28
all you have to do is just press alt and
03:30
then drag on this hue and that’ll
03:32
automatically set the saturation preview
03:35
to 100% so that you can quickly adjust
03:37
or wherever you want to get your colors
03:39
so let’s say there and my shadows as you
03:45
can see you can do some pretty extreme
03:46
effects if you want to but we’re going
03:49
to be subtle a little by little we’re
03:51
going to build this image we’re going to
03:53
skip the detail lens correction
03:54
transform effects because those don’t
03:56
affect color so much and go right into
03:58
our calibration now this is one of the
04:00
most underused misunderstood parts of
04:03
Lightroom why because it seems scary
04:05
what exactly is calibration well it’s
04:07
how Lightroom interprets the color of
04:08
your images so we can get Lightroom to
04:11
interpret your shadows is more green
04:12
wears more magenta we can do the same
04:15
with our Reds whether they’re red or
04:17
interpret it more as orange I’m going to
04:20
take the saturation up in those oranges
04:21
and the Reds green same thing I can take
04:24
it more towards green more towards a
04:26
kind of yellowish blue and then my blues
04:30
this is always the most significant
04:33
change dragging it all the way this way
04:34
is really going to bring out that aqua
04:37
and orange look bring it all the way
04:38
this way is going to make
04:40
look like we’re on another planet so
04:41
we’re going to take it in the middle
04:43
they’re probably around here and just
04:46
like that we’ve come a long way in our
04:48
image here’s before and here’s after now
04:51
the last thing that I’m going to do to
04:53
adjust this images go up and adjust my
04:55
white balance this is one trick that you
04:57
can do if your image isn’t looking the
04:59
way you want it to it could be because
05:00
your white balance isn’t set right
05:02
adjusting this is going to adjust all
05:03
the colors in your image because it’s
05:05
going to add warmth or coolness to the
05:07
entire image so by taking it and warming
05:09
it up just a little bit you can see how
05:11
much more red and yellow comes out of
05:13
the image how it just seems to pop
05:14
whereas our before shot there’s a lot
05:18
cooler
05:18
so just by warming things up ever so
05:20
slightly we can take that image and get
05:22
a little bit more pop out of the cliffs
05:23
and out of the sky so that’s a few ways
05:26
that we can adjust color inside of
05:28
Lightroom as you can see there’s lots of
05:29
different ways to do the same thing I
05:30
could also go to it my adjustment layers
05:32
and make myself a quick little
05:34
adjustment brush to bring out extra
05:35
texture and some saturation so let’s do
05:39
that here just like that and we’re gonna
05:41
paint onto the class I could do the same
05:49
thing with this guy by taking my white
05:51
balance in my temperature my exposure
05:54
down slightly saturation up clarity can
05:57
go down D haze can go down because
05:59
there’s not really much to da’s up in
06:01
the sky and my sharpness down because
06:03
that doesn’t matter and what painting
06:06
that on here you’ll see the sky’s
06:08
getting a little bit more intense and
06:09
that’s mostly because of this trick up
06:11
here both lowering the exposure upping
06:13
the saturation and lowering the
06:15
temperature you can really add blue to
06:16
this guy even if it’s a little blown out
06:17
so that’s just a nice little trick you
06:19
can use and we can dial back that effect
06:21
just by reducing our values here if you
06:24
want to download this preset I’ll make
06:25
it available in the link below I hope
06:27
this tutorial was helpful for you if it
06:28
was please don’t forget to hit that like
06:30
button make sure to subscribe for more
06:32
great content and if you have a question
06:33
leave it in the comments below
06:34
hey if you have an edit that you would
06:37
like to see done or an image that you
06:38
would like to see edited please send me
06:40
a message I’ll get back to you and we’ll
06:41
do it in a future tutorial alright until
06:43
next time go make something awesome
06:46
[Music]
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