In this video, you're going to learn how to make the colors in your photos pop using Lightroom CC.
You can follow along with your own photos or you can download the two assets from the Adobe page for this tutorial.
Once you have downloaded and imported the images into Lightroom CC, you will see them in the photo grid.
You can select this photo first, then open the Edit workspace by pressing E on the keyboard or by clicking on the Edit icon.
Then click on the Color panel to expand it.
Understanding color intensity controls in Lightroom
In Lightroom CC, there are two sliders that you can use to increase or decrease the intensity of colors in your photo: The Vibrance slider and the Saturation slider.
They are similar, but they do have important differences.
Increasing color with the saturation slider
Let's discuss the Saturation slider first.
In this photo, the colors are dull and flat, and your goal is to increase the color intensity so that the colors pop.
If you drag the Saturation slider to the left, you will decrease the saturation of all the colors in the image.
If you drag the slider all the way to the left, it will completely desaturate the image, making it black and white.
If you drag to the right, you will increase the saturation of all the colors in the image.
Saturation is an absolute adjustment.
It treats all colors equally.
In this case, we had a photo where all the colors were flat and dull, it did not have any saturated colors, so the Saturation slider worked great.
I'll click on the Show Original button so that you can see the difference, before and after.
Sometimes, the Saturation slider can get you into trouble, especially if you are working with an image that has highly saturated colors or skin tones.
When saturation causes problems in portraits
I'm going to click on the photo grid by clicking on the Grid icon, - you could also press G on the keyboard - then I'm going to select this photo and click on the Edit icon to expand the panel, or you could press the E key.
In this image, we have a woman wearing a red shirt.
Obviously, we have skin tones and we also have a saturated shirt.
If you drag the Saturation slider to the right, you will quickly see that her shirt and her skin tones get oversaturated even without pushing the Saturation slider to its maximum intensity.
I'll double click on the slider to reset it.
Enhancing colors intelligently with vibrance
Now, let's talk about how the Vibrance slider works and how it can help you increase color intensity.
The Vibrance slider also adds saturation to an image but it does it in a smarter way.
Vibrance is not an absolute adjustment.
It does not adjust all colors the same way.
Vibrance protects already saturated colors and it also protects colors typically found in skin tones.
If you drag the Vibrance slider to the right, it will increase the saturation of the image.
But notice the saturation focuses on the blues, greens and purples.
The red shirt and the skin tones are not affected as dramatically, even at maximum intensity, they are not overblown like they were with the Saturation slider.
Combining vibrance and saturation for balanced results
The best way to work is to start with Vibrance and then use saturation to fine tune the adjustment which is why Vibrance is above Saturation in the Color panel.
I'll reset the Vibrance slider by double-clicking on it, then I'll increase vibrance to 80.
For the most part, the colors in this photo are vibrant and popping the way I want them to.
But the red shirt and her hair are still just a bit too saturated.
So, I can use the Saturation slider to compensate for that oversaturation.
I'll reduce the saturation just a bit.
You can then click under Show Original icon to see the before and the after.
Keep in mind that these adjustments are subjective.
There is no perfect setting for all photos.
You can adjust these sliders in any combination that you like, now that you know the difference between saturation and vibrance, I encourage you to try these controls out to make the colors in your photos pop.
What you learned: How to use the Vibrance and Saturation sliders to control color intensity
The Saturation slider
In the Color panel, use the Saturation slider to adjust the color intensity of all of the colors in the photo. Saturation is an absolute adjustment; it affects all colors equally.
Drag to the left to decrease saturation or to the right to increase it.
The Vibrance slider
The Vibrance slider adds saturation to a photo, but it does it in a smarter way than the Saturation slider. Vibrance is not an absolute adjustment; it protects already saturated colors and colors typically found in skin tones.
Drag to the left to decrease saturation or to the right to increase it.
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