Have you ever wondered how to use the Color grading tool inside Lightroom and Adobe Camera Raw? Here is your complete guide to all the settings in the Color Grade tool in Lightroom and ACR.

This isn’t a tutorial on color theory, it is a tutorial on how to get the best color grading results using this tool and it covers 2 important sliders that are often overlooked.

You can find the color Grade tool in Lightroom (v10 2021 and newer) under the develop module. I’ll start with an explination of the settings, then we will apply them to 3 images to show how to work highlights, shadows and add a cinematic color grade to photos.

You will also find it under Filter>Camera RAW in Photoshop 2021 and newer.

If you want a larger view of the color wheels, click the Shadows, midtone or highlights buttons.

Shadow, Highlight and Midtones

Here I created a gray and color scale so you can see the effects of the adjustments. This part is best viewed in the video at the top.

As we move the shadows, notice how it affectsa the left side of the grayscale bar as well as the blacks in the image.

The highlights shifts the left side of the scale and the bright parts of the image.

Midtones affects the mids in the image, see the middle of the grayscale bar.

Hue, Saturation and Luminance

Drag around the circle (wheel) to change the color (Hue).
Drag towards the edges of the wheel to increase saturation (amount of color). Drag towards center to reduce the saturation.
Drag the Luminance slider to increase/decrease brightness.

Tips for using Color Grade

Hold down Ctrl/Cmd to constrain adjustments to Hue only

Shift key constrains to Saturation only without changing hue

The Alt/Option key allows you to make fine adjustments as it slows down your movements.

Balance

The balance slider will favor a color and apply the tint to all the ranges in the image

Balance to the left will favor the Shadow tone (If you have changes it, otherwise it will have no effect).

Move Balance to the right to favor the color on the Highlight wheel

If blending is in the middle, it favors the midtone wheel. The midtones are also influenced by the shadow and highlight colors.

Blending

The blending slider will separate the colors in the regions, or blend then together.

Move the Blending slider to the left and the colors are more separated and contained to their respective regions.

As the slider is pushed to the right, the colors are now distributed through the other tones and blend with each other more.

Color Grading Highlights (Blending use case)

Remember this is a Color grade, not a color correction. You should do color color correction first, grading is to add some style.

Let’s color grade the highlights on this photo I shot in Maui Hawaii.

Add a little pink to the highlights

Add a little blue to the shadows (a very common color grade move).

See how the color is present in the highlight/shadows regions, but it’s very separated and doesn’t blend much.

As we move the blending to the right, the colors blend together much better. See the highlights on the water.

Experiment with the Balance as well

Color Grading Shadows

Here is a photo, that has lots of shadows.

It can look nice to add a little greenish tint to the shadows to add a bit of style

Or we could add a little blue.

(Optional) Sometimes when you add some color in the shadows and midtones, you will need to reduce the saturation a little bit to keep skin tones more natural.

Cinematic color

Lets make a cinematic color grade

here is the starting photo

The most common look is the Teal and orange, or blue and orange color grade, also known as the Blockbuster look. This is achieved by adding teal or blue to shadows and orange to highlights.

Notice the Luminance in the shadows and highlights. I have boosted the darks in the shadows and increased brightness in highlights to add contrast punch.

Let’s do another vintage period color grade, that I enjoy.

Add some greens into the shadows.

Adding yellow to the highlights adds a nice look.

Usually this is accompanied by reducing the saturation somewhat

Hopefully this tutorial has given you some insight into this very powerful tool in Lightroom and camera raw.

If you are getting value from my tutorials, please tell your friends about PhotoshopCAFE and share them on social media.

Great to see you here at the CAFE

Colin

The post Ultimate Guide to ACR Lightroom Color Grading Tool appeared first on PhotoshopCAFE.

Continuing on my deep dive series into the different settings in Lightroom and Adobe Camera RAW (The adjustments on both are identical). This time I break down Texture, Clarity and Dehaze. They aren’t the same. I’ll explain what each does, provide the best times to use each on your photos and then we will wrap up by applying all 3 to an image selectively using masks. For previous tutorials in this series, check out Contrast | Shadow/Highlight vs Black/White

Before we dive in, I want to quickly define 2 terms.

Contrast and Frequency in images

Let’s start with contrast. Contrast=The difference between the lightest and darkest pixels in an image.

On the left side of this photo, you will see the darkest and the lightest pixels.

Because there is a large distance between them (on the grayscale), this is known as high contrast.

Look at the right side of the same photo. There aren’t any real blacks.

The difference between the darkest and lightest part is less. This makes a low contrast image.

Here is an example of full contrast, blacks and whites exist in this image. It looks punchy.

An example of a low contrast image. No true blacks or whites. The image appears softer. There isn’t any right and wrong here. Use what works best of each photo.

Frequency. The details in an image

Max Wendt from Adobe said it the best I’ve heard it. High frequency is the details, mid frequency is the features, while low frequency are the areas.

All that means, areas of fine detail are known as high frequency and areas that have little detail are known as low frequency. Most images contain all the different frequencies.

Finding the Texture, Contrast and Dehaze sliders

Both Camera Raw in Photoshop and all the Lightrooms have these 3 sliders.

In LIghtroom Classic they are under the presence portion of the adjustments panel

In Photoshop, choose filter>Camera RAW

You will find them under the Effects panel. When you are in masks in Lightroom and ACR, they are called Effects.

Clarity

Time to demonstrate the 3 sliders and explain them.

I will use this chart on all 3 of the adjustments so you can see how it effects different parts of an image. This isn’r a standard chart, I made it myself for testing purposes.

This is the chart with no adjustments for your reference.

When we increase the clarity, you will notice the image looks sharper and more punchy.

Clarity adjusts the contrast in the midtones of the image (Grays). It doesn’t really affect blacks ands whites as much as midtones. It also adjusts the colors and makes them appear muddy. It adds a grunge to the image at higher settings.

Because of this, it makes details pop.

How clarity works.

Clarity works in a similar way as unsharp mask in Photoshop.

Choose Filter>Sharpen>Unsharp mask

When cranked up too high you can clearly see whats happening. It adds a halo around edges and details. This gives the appearance of sharpening.

Clarity is useful for bringing out details in an image.

Here you can see the details on Chrystal’s shirt as well as the raygun. But be careful, this effect is not flattering on skin. We will address this at the end where we use a brush to apply clarity.

When Clarity first came out, it was widely used as an cartoonish effect known as the Grunge look or the fake HDR look in an attempt to emulate the work of photographer Dave Hill. (Trend followers might not have been aware of Dave Hill by the time it became mainstream, poor Dave).

While it still has it’s place for certain effects (I have a client that loves it, and forces me to use it often under protest), I would suggest against overusing this look unless you are after this particular effect. (I show how to do it on the video at the top, but essentially you crank Clarity, highlights and shadows to the maximum setting).

Another place where Clarity is great is with landscape photos.

Clarity can really bring out details in things like rocks.

Dehaze

Dehaze works mostly on Low frequency areas on an image. It was designed to cut through fog, smog and glare. Dehaze boosts low frequency contrast and saturates the colors.

Notice how it doesn’t really affect the light parts of the image when added. But it really boosts the contrast in the rest of the image. This works well for things like skies as well as cutting through glare. It’s like cleaning a dirty window.

If used in the opposite direction, dehaze can be used to add fog.

Dehaze works well on areas like the waterfall that is losing detail due to the mist.

Remember, the primary goal here isn’t to fix a photo, but to demonstrate what these tools do. (I say this because, someone will say “the waterfall looked better before” and they might be right according to their subjective tastes. while others will prefer the “after” effect. It doesn’t matter, the point is to observe what these tools do so you can use them on totally different images.. your images. I look forward to the day when I don’t have to preface these obvious things, but photographers…).

Here you can see Dehaze affects the washed out area the most. While the whole image is affected, its not as much as the area of low contrast.

If we push the dehaze to the left, it will actually introduce haze.

Dehaze on skies

I love to use dehaze on skies and clouds.

See how it pops the details on the clouds.

But be aware, dehaze also boosts saturation

If we reduce saturation afterwards, we can enjoy the detail of Dehaze without over saturating the colors.

Texture

The newest of the three Presence sliders is Texture. This is actually my choice in most cases and has largely replaced clarity in my personal workflow.

Texture Increases medium frequency contrast and doesn’t affect color too much (because its higher frequency than sharpening, it doesn’t exaggerate noise as much,

See how the details are showing better, but the color isn’t affected.

Texture was originally created by Adobe as a way to soften skin without removing the fine details like pores.

A subtle amount of negative texture can quickly make skin look great without making it look fake. Go too far and it will become plastic looking.

Originally designed to reduce texture, Adobe wondered what would happen if they allowed it to increase texture. What they go was an excellent sharpening effect that pops the textures in images.

Here is an image with texture applied. It brings out the gravel and texture of the road.

Texture works similar to sharpening, but sharpening is applied to finer details than texture.

Here the image has sharpening applied but no texture. See the finer details. This also enhances noise grain if any is present in the image.

The ideal mix is a bit of sharpening and a bit of texture.

Applying Texture, Clarity and Dehaze locally with a Mask brush.

Now for the holy grail. This is how I like to use these 3 adjustments.

Here is the before image. Remember, the goal is to pop the details as a demonstration.

Lets create a mask brush

Click on the mask icon

choose brush

Apply the brush to the low contrast area.

Increase the Dehaze.

Lower the saturation so we are affecting the details and not the color.

Continue to paint on the areas of the image that you want to cut through haze.

Add a second mask for Clarity.

Click> Create New Mask and choose brush

Add some clarity.

Paint over the bamboo and the leaves on the left to pop the details. You cam also paint over some of the areas we app;ied dehaze and see how combining these reveals a lot of detail. (The video at the top of the page shows this very well).

Add a third brush.

Increase texture

Paint over the ground and details in the leaves on the left. Even add a little texture to the model.

Texture is my go to tool for a lot of detail, but also combine it with sharpening.

Here is the image before adjustments

And here is is after only applying the 3 tools (and a lowering of saturation on the dehaze).

This tutorial was to demonstrate Texture, Clarity and dehaze, You would use other tools on your image as well of course. “What about contrast?”  you may ask. That is covered in it’s own tutorial here. Contrast | and Shadow/Highlight vs Black/White

If you found this tutorial interesting, then maybe you are ready for my comprehensive course on Lightroom Classic or Camera Raw. I also recently released a tutorial on Masks in Lightroom and Camera RAW here.

For the next few days you can use this code ACRLR15 to save 15% of these valuable master classes/courses. (You won’t see the fake 97% discounts here, because we never artificially inflate the prices of our courses, they have been some of the best value courses available for 20 years).

Thanks for checking this out

Colin

The post Texture, Clarity and Dehaze in Lightroom + ACR explained. The Ultimate Comparision appeared first on PhotoshopCAFE.

This tutorial focuses on the Tone adjustments in Lightroom and ACR. These are the most important settings to begin editing your images.

This simple tutorial shows you an effective way to prepare your photos for further enhancement. It gives you a solid base of quality image details. (In many cases this is all you will need).

This tutorial works with Lightroom Classic, Lightroom and Adobe Camera RAW

A quick tip to start.

If you are using Lightroom, drag the develop panel to the left to widern the panel and elongate the sliders. See the red )original length) thia gives u almost 2x the amount of control.

Recover details

Here is the original image showing a loss of detail in the bight areas in the sky and on the left of the image.

We will use the Tone panel and this is the order I use it.

First, we want to reveal as much detail in the highlights and shadows as we need.

Drag the highlight slider to the left to reveal details in the sky. (Dehaze also reveals the details, but it also increases contrast, so it shouldn’t be used yet.)

If you still need more details, (depends on the image) reduce the exposure slightly.

I like to slightly reduce the contrast slider to open up more detail (See this tutorial on Contrast to see why)

Lets reveal detail in the shadows (lower right of the image)

Slide the Shadow slider to the right.

Use the Shadow and the highlight sliders as recovery sliders. Always more the Shadows to the right

And always push the highlights to the left.

Note: The amount you move these will vary from image to image and from camera to camera. These are shot on a drone with low dynamic range files, so they are pushed more aggressively that I would need to move them on camera like the Sony A1 for example.

Now we have opened up the details in the image. Next we want to add some punch.

The Whites and Blacks are used to add the contrast back into the image with minimum loss of details.

Lets do the whites first.

Hold down the Alt/Option key as you move the whites. You will see clipping indications on the screen. This lets us know if we have gone too far and lost highlight details.

Move the whites to the right to clean up milky areas in the highlights. This image is already bright, so it doesn’t need much.

Move the blacks to the left to add punch to the shadows. (Hold down alt/Option to see clipping too).

At this point, you can go on and use other tools including curves and Presence. This tutorial is focusing on the tone adjustments and I hope this helps you get to a good start point in getting better edits!

Check out this companion tutorial on Contrast vs Whites/Blacks that fits right in with this tutorial.

Great to see you at the CAFE

Colin

The post Tone Panel, most important settings in Lightroom and Adobe Camera RAW appeared first on PhotoshopCAFE.

Here is a photo which has a blue light hitting one side. You can also see issues where the strands of hair are casting a different colored shadow. This is an especially tricky image because it also has a strange highlight on the other cheek that looks like a birth mark. we can easily fix all of this using the new Point Color tool.

Choose filter>Camera Raw (Or open in Lightroom, it works identical. Point color in Lightroom tutorial)

Scroll down to the Color Mixer section and click on point color.

The first thing we do is sample a color with the eyedropper.

Click on the blue color with the eyedropper.

Notice it adds a colored swatch

The first thing we will do, is refine the area we are targeting.

If the tools aren’t showing under Range, click the little triangle.

Hold down Alt/Option as you move the sliders and you can visualize the are you are selecting.

The range determines how close to the exact sampled color will be included.

Use the Hue, Saturation and Luminance range to further refine the selection based on color(Hue), how much color (Saturation) and lightness (Luminance). (The Hue/Saturation in Photoshop can select by hue only).

Once you have selected you color, its time to change it with the color swatches, or the Hue, Saturation and Luminance sliders.

Change the Hue in to match the color

Adjust saturation and luminance to match the rest of the image. Notice even the shadow on her hair looks correct now.

There is still the problem with the harsh shadow on the other cheek.

Once again, grab the eyedropper.

Click on the shadow color, notice you see a second color. You can add up to 8.

In the same way, make adjustments until it matches.

If you want to reduce the transition area, we can use the healing brush. Here is how.

Choose the healing brush tool

Select a small sized, feathered soft setting

Drag over the transition area.

and the healing brush fixes it.

Here are the before and after images for you to look at.

I hope you found this tutorial useful. Drop a comment and say hi!

Watch the video at the top and subscribe to our YouTube channel for lots more free Photoshop tutorials.

Great to see you here at the CAFE

Colin

If you want $250 worth of Photoshop add-ons for nada (Brushes, presets, actions, sky photos, ebooks, cheat sheets and more) Check out the Vault

The post Remove Color shadows from a face with Point Color in Photoshop appeared first on PhotoshopCAFE.

So many people increase Contrast to add pop to a photo, but they aren’t aware that they can also be damaging other tones in the image. Here is another way of adding some punch, while preserving the details in and image and increasing its quality.

After editing thousands of photos, I found myself naturally gravitating to these adjustments and I want to share my findings with you.

Here is the starting photo. Note: I have made some initial adjustments to shadow and highlight and exposure.

Do you ever use the contrast adjustment in Camera RAW or Lightroom? Most people use this the opposite to what produces the best results.

In Photoshop Choose Filter>Camera RAW Filter (It’s the same in Lightroom too)

Most people increase the contrast to add pop to the dark and light areas of the photo.

But look at how we are losing so much detail in the dark rocks and the water looks thick and dense.

Instead, reduce the contrast a little bit. Notice in the image below, the detail in the rocks and how much more natural the water looks.

We will bring back the darks and lights, but in a different way.

One of the things I have noticed is that contrast is very similar to moving both the black and whites.

Examine the histograms

Look at the charts and notice the histograms are very similar (not exact, but similar results). Contrast also affects the midtones, but to a lesser degree..

Reducing contrast, compresses the histogram towards the middle (preserves highlight and shadow detail). Minimum settings on Black and white sliders do the same thing.

Inversely, when you increase the contrast. you stretch or expand the histogram and clips or loses details in the extremities. Pushing Blacks and whites does the same thing.

This is important because, rather than increasing the contrast, we can reduce it and bring back the dark and light contrast using blacks and whites and thus get separate and more control over the tones.

In the image with the reduced contrast, move the blacks to the left to bring back the body to the darks and slightly increase the whites to brighten the brightest parts of the image.

This adds the pop without zapping the details and making the image look crunchy.

Here is the original image

With contrast added

Reducing the contrast, but adding pop with black and whites. More details and lighter looking foam (as in weight and density, not just tone)

Look at the foreground foam, See how contrast separated the foam and water and looks dirty

With the reduced contrast, the water and rocks look more natural.

Obviously this isn’t the only adjustment I make to a photo. But I wanted to share a different way of using contrast, that in my opinion produces better results. Check out the 2 minute video at the top to see a bit more.

This is the way I have been using contrast myself for a while now.

I hope you found this useful.

Great to see you at the CAFE

Colin

The post Photoshop contrast alternative makes every photo better appeared first on PhotoshopCAFE.

Let’s take a look at the most important new features in Lightroom 16 inside Photoshop 2023. These features work the same in Lightroom.

Check out the more in depth look into each of these here. Point Color, Lens Blur. HDR Output to come, (I have one here, but plan on a newer one soon).

Point Color to enhance colors in a photograph

Here is a photo I captures in Kaui, but it doesn’t show the vibrant colors of the sun rising through the fog like I saw. Let’s fix that.

Choose Point Color, next to Color Mixer

Grab the eyedropper

Click on the color you want to work with

There are 2 parts. The top part of the panel enables you to change the color.

The bottom half (range) enables you to choose which colors you will affect.

Hold down the Alt/Option key to isolate the colors you are selecting. The image will turn black and white except for the colors you are including in the range.

You can select the colors using 3 dimensions.

Hue: The color itself

Saturation: The amount of color

Luminance, lights and darks

Once you have selected your color in the range you can change them in the top part of the panel. (All shown in the video at top)

I increased the saturation and luminance.

After adjusting the rest of the settings in the basic (shown on video) this is the photo, looking more like what I saw when I pressed the shutter.

Feature #2 Blurring backgrounds with Lens Blur

Here’s a photo with a very distracting background.

We can blur the background to keep the emphasis on the model.

Choose Lens blur and click apply. The ai will select the background and blur it.

If you use a photo that includes a depth map such as from a mobile phone shot in portrait mode, Camera Raw will use that depth map.

Adjust the amount of blur. Usually I push it all the way up so I can easily see what I’m working on. We will adjust the blur amount at the end of the workflow for a realistic value.

You can change the focus area by sliding the Focal Range

Here we are putting the background into focus.

Slide it back to put the model in focus.

Lets refine the blur areas

Turn on Visualize Depth.

You will see the Depth Map and lighter areas are close and the darker areas are further back.

See the purple around the hair and arm? Its easy to see the problems when we are in visualize mode with the Depth Map.

Grab th Blur Brush

Turn on Auto Mask to detect the edges

Paint around the purple areas

You may not initially notice much difference.

Slide the Blur Amount. Notice as you do, the painted areas are lightened or darkened. Move the slider until the painted areas match the others in the Depth Map.

Looks like I missed a little on the arm.

As you paint with the blur tool, you will see it instantly changes to match. So easy to see what you are doing now.  (Focus brush, if you are fixing the selection of the sharp area, model).

See how the edges look better.

If you choose the different bokeh types, you’ll see a different kind of blur.  (each type of bokeh explained here)

Finally, roll back the blur amount for a more realistic result.

HDR output

HDR stands for High Dynamic Range. I have done many, many tutorials on HDR over the years. So I won’t go into detailed explanations here.

There has been a lot of big developments in resolution over the past few years. Going from VGA to 4k. More Megapixels were all the thing on cameras.

We now have 8k and climbing, and frankly at this point you can’t see the difference unless you have a massive sized screen. Resolution is no longer an issue. It’s resolved (sorry couldn’t resist)

Where we have a challenge is with dynamic range. The sensors and hardware were unable to show a range of tones and colors as realistically as we can see, especially in the highlight regions.

SDR is Standard Dynamic range. Even though SDR has come a long way in deeper blacks and smother gradations, it still has a way to go.

Along comes HDR. HDR is able to display more colors and tones, and extends the brightest part of image to show detail and color, instead of clipping to white. Same thing in the shadows, more detail is shown and backs so rich, it looks as if your screen is off.

For a while now, cameras have been getting better and better dynamic range in RAW.  Some have better sensors and others use computational photography to collect high dynamic range.  We can also bracket photos and make HDRs in Camera RAW and Lightroom from our own photos. 

Most new TV and Monitors are now HDR capable, such as the BenQ monitors I use.

Mobile phones, apple laptops and  ipads can display in HDR (Apple calls it XDR).

So, we have hardware capable of showing HDR, what’s the holdup?

Until now, we never had and end to end HDR workflow in Lightroom and Camera RAW. Sure, we could make HDR images and save them as OpenEXR, Photoshop and DNG, butnone of these are consumption formats.

Now we have the capability to save as jpg XL (jxl) or avif.

Don’t worry, if you don’t understand all this yet.

Ok, lets look at this now.

If you have an HDR capable monitor, you can turn on HDR in your control panel in mac or windows. (Even if you don’t have an HDR monitor, you can still output HDR images for people to enjoy on those devices, or on mobile phones etc.

In the Edit panel in Camera RAW, you will see and HDR button.

Press it and you will notice your histogram changes.

On the left is SDR, or all you could output previously in a jpg.

On the right, notice it says HDR. This is where it can hold more info.

See the additional pixels that would have been cut off and not shown in SDR. These are colors and detail that is brighter than white in SDR, but not in HDR. They can be displayed.

Turn on Visualize HDR and you will see the areas of detail that would be clipped off or lost. Not surprising the ball of the setting sun is very bright, and often just shown as white.

make adjustments, turn off visualize.

Click on Preview for SDR Display

This simulates when the image will look like on an SDR display. Make adjustments until you get it looking its best. (These will be tone-mapped – look at my HDR tuts to understand what tone-mapping is).

Make adjustments

Ok Now we want to output this images into a format that can display true HDR.

choose the output button.

Under format choose a format that can support HDR output such as avif or jpg XL.

Turn on HDR output.

I like to use P3 (it’s widely supported), although Rec. 2020 will also work.

Choose Save and you will export an image that will show as HDR on compatible hardware. You’ll notice a difference especially in the brighter areas where the images will look more lifelike than what you have seen before.

Ok, there’s my round up of the top 3 new features in Camera RAW. I hope you found this useful

Colin

If you use Camera RAW, you will LOVE my course on Camera RAW, check it out here. 

The post New features Adobe Camera RAW 16, Photoshop 2024 appeared first on PhotoshopCAFE.

Lens Blur allows us to blur the background of a photo, to simulate using an expensive lens with a wider aperture. If you don’t have a nice lens, or you are working on existing photos, or photos supplied by someone else, this tool is very useful. Even if you shot with a nice lens, maybe you didn’t open it up when you took the shot, to you didn’t have a neutral density filter in strong light. There are many scenarios where you don’t have sufficient background blur on some photos. Let’s looks at all the features in this ai powered tool including how you can finesse the results. I hear mixed feeling on this, some people loving it and some hating it. Don’t worry about other peoples opinions, if you like this look, go for it!  Personally, I’m not a purest and I enjoy this feature. If you use it in a subtle way, it can produce very convincing results.

Adding background Blur

Let’s start with this picture I made of the cowboy in Santa Fe, New Mexico

Notice there  is a small amount of background blur, but not much.

Choose Lens Blur under the develop module.

When you turn on Apply, Lens Blur uses ai to detect the depth in the image and create a depth map. If the image was shot on a phone in portrait mode that makes a depth map, Lightroom/ACR will use that map.

See the icon of the head in white. This is focus on subject

Notice it detects the subject and blurs the background. Changing the blur amount effects how blurry the background it.

Generally, I add a little too much blur to start with, this makes it easy to see what we are doing and then, we roll the blur amount back at the end to a tasteful amount.

If you click the crosshair to the right of Focal Range, you can click on the photo. Wherever you click will become the area in focus.

When I click on the door its in focus.

Or the post in front of it.

You can also slide the box under Focal Range to change the focus, much like focusing a camera.

If you make the box longer, it extends the depth of field, making more of the photo in focus at once, like an f11 aperture or so.   Make the box more narrow for a shallow depth of field, like a f2.8. The video shows this clearly.

THe ai didi a decent job of selecting the subject (And in simpler photos, it’s pretty good. I chose this one with fine detail so we can see how to manually fix the selection)

The rope and the tip of hit hat needs some help.

Turn on Visualize depth to make it easier to see what’s going on.

The lighter areas are closer to the camera, whereas the darker areas are further away.

Lets manually adjust the selection.

Choose Focus to paint on the areas that should be sharp. Turn on Auto Mask to help with the edges.

Paint on the areas that need to be sharp, but were missed by the ai selection.

In order for them to match, adjust the amount. As you go to the left it pushes the painted area further into the background as you can see by the slight orange color.

Push the Amount slider to the right to make it closer to the camera. Now, it’s yellow. We want the area we paint to match the colors in the existing depth map for a perfect result.

Choose the Blur button to fix the areas outside of the rope.

Paint with the blur to include the areas of the background that were accidentally selected.

Adjust the Amount so the purple between the rope matches the background.

And here we have a pretty nice edge.

For a realistic result, Increase the depth range so that more of the photo is in focus.

Reduce the blur amount to a reasonable value.

Using Bokeh settings

Let’s use this as an example to show off Bokeh. Bokeh changes bright and specular areas into circles that imitate the way different camera apertures look for out-of-focus highlights.

Apple the blur and turn amount all the way up to easily see what’s going on.

Notice we made the Focus Range very narrow to smite a prime 1.4 or 1.8 (ish) lens.

Here I have highlighted one of the circles so you can clearly see the different types of bokeh shapes.

Circle is what’s on most modern cameras including mirrorless cameras.

Bubble adds a little stroke to the circle.

5-Blade gives us a pentagon to simulate the aperture opening on a vintage lens.

Ring simulates a camera with a mirror.

And the cat eye, provides an interesting variation

And the result, after lowering the amount a little bit.

I hope you enjoyed this tutorial. If you did, share it with your friends and on social media

Great to see you here at the CAFE

Colin

The post Lens Blur in Lightroom and Camera Raw – Ultimate Guide appeared first on PhotoshopCAFE.

A new tool in Lightroom and camera Raw is Point Color. This tool enables you to select and change colors in photos based on Hue, Saturation and Lightness, as opposed to old tools which only let you select by hue. Point Color can also be used on Masks.

We will remove this color reflection from the photo of cameras.

How Point Color Works

First lets take a quick look at how Point Color does its magic.

Go to the Develop Module in Lightroom (Or Adobe Camera Raw in Photoshop)

Go to Color Mixer and you’ll see Point Color.

Click the eyedropper tool

Click on the color you want to work with in the photograph

You will se the color is selected.

You can drag to the left or right to change the Hue (the color itself)

Drag up or down to change the Saturation. (Amount of Color)

Drag on the gradient to the right to change the Luminance (Light or Dark)

Of course you can always use the sliders which are named as such.

Try moving the sliders or the point in the color swatch, you can alter the corresponding colors on the image.

Here you can see the green changing.

Click the visualize Range box, or hold down Alt/Option as you move a slider to see the area that’s being changed. On the effected area will appear in color.

As we move the slider, notice the bar under the swatch shows the original color to the left and the new color on the right half of the bar.

We can refine which areas will be included by opening the arrow at Range to see the options.

Moving the range slider to the left decuces the reach of colors to be included, while sliding to the right increases the spread.

Use the Hue, Saturation and Luminance range sliders to further refine the selection. This is demonstrated on the video above

Notice, we can refine the selection so just the greens in the hedge are selected.

Change the Hue Shift to add a nice green to the hedge and no affect anything else. As I noted at the start, this will also work on masks if you need to refine it more.

Fixing the Color Contamination in reflections

OK, let’s look at this picture I snapped at an exhibit. You can see all kinds of colored reflections on the metal from surrounding colored lights. Let’s fix this.

Choose the eyedropper to select the purple color.

Refine the selection under range

Drag the saturation all the way to the left to remove the color.

There are still some salmon colored reflections.

Click with the eyedropper to add a second color.

Reduce the saturation to remove that color too.

Notice the red letters are still there on the camera.

Watch the video to see this more in depth.

I hope this was useful!

If you want to learn Lightroom Classic check out my course on Lightroom 2023 here, or the brand new course on Lightroom Masks

Thanks

Colin

The post Remove color reflections in Lightroom Classic ACR with new Point Color appeared first on PhotoshopCAFE.

Here are the new features.

(Written steps coming soon)

If you want to learn Lightroom Classic check out my course on Lightroom 2023 here, or the brand new course on Lightroom Masks

Thanks

Colin

The post Lightroom 13 – Lightroom Classic 2024 New Features appeared first on PhotoshopCAFE.

In this Lightroom / Camera RAW tutorial, we will learn an easy way to add edge lights and background lights to separate an image from the background.

This is an effective way to add some pop to a photo. In this case, we are using a person. The technique will work for any object and also works well in product photography and even photography for ebay.

In the Lightroom Classic develop module, or in Camera RAW (they are both the same and this tutorial applies to both Adobe apps.)

Click on create mask

Choose Radial Gradient

Drag out the gradient to add a spotlight effect on the background.

Adjust the Exposure to brighten the light.

Change the temp to add color to the light. In this case we are making it more blue (cool light).

Let’s add a second light on the other side. (This wills show you how to use both gradient types).

Choose Add, and Linear Gradient

Drag out the gradient to add some light that would be originating just above the model and off to the side.

Because we are adding to the mask, notice it takes on the settings of the previous gradient. If you want different settings, create a new mask, rather than adding.

Let make sure the lighting only affects the background. We will customize the lighting on the model. The exclude our person (Julia, is the model’s name), choose Subtract and select subject.

The model will be unaffected by the lights now.

Lets add edge light to the model

Click Create New Mask

Choose Subject

You will see our model is masked.

Now we want to use the mask as a stencil, so we can add the rim light, but have the edges protected.

Hold down Alt/Option in Lightroom (Shift in ACR) and you will notice add/subject now says Intersect

Choose interest with Brush

Intersect will only add a mask where the 2 masks overlap. This is magical when adding an edge/rim light, because we don’t have to worry about painting outside the model’s mask.

Paint around the edge

Brighten the exposure

Notice it now looks like a back/side light is on the model, to match the spill on the background. This light wouldn’t be placed in front of the model, as it’s acting like a hair light, (but larger and lower), kicker, or separation light, whatever you decide to call it. (I say this because I always get comments on the lighting and I have lit enough people in the studio to know how lights look).

Add more light on the other side to match the radial gradient we created in step 1).

I hope you found this simple tutorial useful and that you can adapt it to your own projects and go even deeper with it. Let me know in the comments.

I just want to mention, this is a small taste f the kinds of things I teach in my brand new Masking in Lightroom and Camera RAW course. (And no, it isn’t just for portrait photography, a lot of it is landscape as well and all lessons work on any type of photography).

Thanks for checking it out

Colin

Masks in Lightroom and Camera RAW (in Photoshop)

This new 3+ hour set of 26 tutorials will help you master the use of the new Masks in Lightroom or /and Camera RAW. Get it here

The post Add Edge Lights in Camera RAW and Lightroom, with ai Masks appeared first on PhotoshopCAFE.