Work with image tone and color

Apply a profile to your image

Profiles allow you to control how colors and tonality are rendered in your photos. The profiles provided in the Profile area of the Basic panel are intended to serve as a starting point or foundation for making image edits.

Applying a profile on your photo doesn't change or overwrite the value of other edit control sliders. Therefore, you can make edits to your photos as you like and then choose to apply a profile on top of your edited image.

Browse and apply profiles

Import profiles

Add a profile to Favorites

To add a profile to Favorites profile group:

• When browsing the profiles in the Grid or Large view, hover on the profile thumbnail and click the star icon that appears at the upper-right corner of the thumbnail. 
• When browsing the profiles in the List view, hover on the profile and click the star icon that appears next to the profile's name.

You can also access your favorite profiles from the Profiles pop-menu. 

Manage profiles

Introduced in Lightroom Classic CC 7.4 (June 2018 release)

Using the Manage Profiles option, you can show or hide various profile groups that are displayed in the Profile browser - Basic, Adobe Raw, Camera Matching, Legacy, Artistic, B&W, Modern, Vintage, or any other profiles that you've imported.

To show/hide profile groups, follow the steps below:

Set the white balance

White Balance refers to the color created in your photo from the temperature of your light source. For example, a noon day sun will cast a very warm, yellow color whereas some light bulbs will cast a very cool, blue color in your photo.

You can adjust the white balance of a photo to reflect the lighting conditions under which it was taken—daylight, tungsten, flash, and so on.

You can either choose a white balance preset option or click a photo area that you want to specify as a neutral color. Lightroom Classic adjusts the white balance setting, and then you can fine-tune it using the sliders provided.

Choose a white balance preset option

In the Basic panel of the Develop module, choose an option from the WB pop-up menu. As Shot uses the camera's white balance settings, if they are available. Auto calculates the white balance based on the image data.

Lightroom Classic applies the white balance setting and moves the Temp and Tint sliders in the Basic panel accordingly. Use these sliders to fine-tune the color balance. See Fine-tune the white balance using the Temp and Tint controls.

Specify a neutral area in the photo

Fine-tune the white balance using the Temp and Tint controls

In the Basic panel of the Develop module, adjust the Temp and Tint sliders.

Temp or Temperature sets how yellow/warm or blue/cool your photo looks. Use Temp to fine-tune the white balance using the Kelvin color temperature scale. Move the slider to the left to make the photo appear cooler, and right to warm the photo colors.

You can also set a specific Kelvin value in the Temp text box to match the color of the ambient light. Click the current value to select the text box and enter a new value. For example, photographic tungsten lights are often balanced at 3200 Kelvin. If you shoot under photo tungsten lights and set the image temperature to 3200, your photos should appear color balanced.

One of the benefits of working with raw files is that you can adjust the color temperature as if you were changing a setting in a camera during capture, allowing a broad range of settings. When working with JPEG, TIFF, and PSD files, you work in a scale of -100 to 100 rather than the Kelvin scale. Non-raw files such as JPEG or TIFF include the temperate setting in the file, so the temperate scale is more limited.

Tint sets how green or magenta your photo is. Use Tint to fine-tune the white balance to compensate for a green or magenta tint. Move the slider to the left (negative values) to add green to the photo; move it to the right (positive values) to add magenta.

Tip: If you see a green or magenta color cast in the shadow areas after adjusting the temperature and tint, try removing it by adjusting the Shadows Tint slider in the Camera Calibration panel.

Adjust overall image tonal scale

You adjust the overall image tonal scale using the tone controls in the Basic panel. As you work, keep an eye on the end points of the histogram, or use the shadow and highlight clipping previews.

Adjust the tonal scale using the histogram

About histograms

A histogram is a representation of the number of pixels in a photo at each luminance percentage. A histogram that stretches from the left side of the panel to the right side indicates a photo that takes full advantage of the tonal scale. A histogram that doesn't use the full tonal range can result in a dull image that lacks contrast. A histogram with spikes at either end indicates a photo with shadow or highlight clipping. Clipping can result in the loss of image detail.

A histogram is made up of three layers of color that represent the Red, Green, and Blue color channels. Gray appears when all three channels overlap; yellow, magenta, and cyan appear when two of the RGB channels overlap (yellow equals the Red + Green channels, magenta equals the Red + Blue channels, and cyan equals the Green + Blue channels).

Adjust images using the histogram

In the Develop module, specific areas of the Histogram panel are related to the tone sliders in the Basic panel. You can make adjustments by dragging in the histogram. Your adjustments are reflected in the Basic panel sliders.

View RGB color values

The area under the histogram in the Develop module displays the RGB color values for individual pixels appearing under the Hand or Zoom tool when you move it over the photo.

You can use this information to determine whether any areas of the photo are clipped, such as whether an R, G, or B value is 0% black or 100% white. If at least one channel in the clipped area has color, then you might be able to use it to recover some detail in the photo.

View RGB and LAB color values in Reference View

While working in the Reference View in the Develop module, the area under the histogram displays the RGB/LAB color values for individual pixels appearing under the Hand or Zoom tool when you move it over the Reference/Active photo.

If the dimensions of the Reference photo and the Active photo/cropped Active photo match, the readings are displayed in the following manner:

Reference/Active R [Reference value]/[Active value] G [Reference value]/[Active value] B [Reference value]/[Active value] %

When you toggle the Before view of the Active photo, the color values are displayed in a similar manner for the Reference/Active (Before) photos. 

Reference/Active (Before) R [Reference value]/[Active Before value] G [Reference value]/[Active Before value] B [Reference value]/[Active Before value] %

By default, RGB color values are displayed. To display the LAB color values, right-click the histogram and choose Show Lab Color Values.

For more details about the Before view, see View Before and After Photos.

Preview highlight and shadow clipping

You can preview tonal clipping in a photo as you work on it. Clipping is the shifting of pixel values to the highest highlight value or the lowest shadow value. Clipped areas are either completely white or completely black, and have no image detail. You can preview clipped areas as you adjust the tone sliders in the Basic panel.

Clipping indicators  are located at the top of the Histogram panel in the Develop module. The black (shadow) clipping indicator is on the left, and the white (highlight) indicator is on the right.

• Move the Blacks slider and watch the black clipping indicator. Move the Recovery or Whites sliders and watch the white clipping indicator. An indicator turns white when clipping in all channels occurs. A colored clipping indicator means one or two channels are clipped.
• To preview clipping in the photo, move the mouse over the clipping indicator. Click the indicator to keep the preview on.

  Clipped black areas in the photo become blue, and clipped white areas become red.

• To view clipped image ares for each channel, press Alt (Windows) or Option (Mac OS) while moving a slider in the Basic panel of the Develop module.

  For the Recovery and Whites sliders, the image turns black, and clipped areas appear white. For the Blacks slider, the image turns white and clipped areas appear black. Colored areas indicate clipping in one color channel (red, green, blue) or two color channels (cyan, magenta, yellow).

Set overall color saturation

In the Presence area of the Basic panel, change the color saturation (vividness or color purity) of all colors by adjusting the Clarity, Vibrance, and Saturation controls. (To adjust saturation for a specific range of colors, use the controls in the HSL/Color/Grayscale panel.)

Adds depth to an image by increasing local contrast. When using this setting, it is best to zoom in to 100% or greater. To maximize the effect, increase the setting until you see halos near the edge details of the image, and then reduce the setting slightly.

Controls the amount of haze in a photograph. Drag to the right to remove haze; drag to the left to add haze.

Adjusts the saturation so that clipping is minimized as colors approach full saturation, changing the saturation of all lower-saturated colors with less effect on the higher-saturated colors. Vibrance also prevents skin tones from becoming over saturated.

Adjusts the saturation of all image colors equally from ‐100 (monochrome) to +100 (double the saturation).

Video tutorial: Work with Clarity, Vibrance, and Saturation

Learn how to use the Clarity, Vibrancy, and Saturation tools to create above average images.

Fine-tune the tonal scale using the Tone Curve panel

The graph in the Tone Curve panel of the Develop module represents changes made to the tonal scale of a photo. The horizontal axis represents the original tone values (input values), with black on the left and progressively lighter values toward the right. The vertical axis represents the changed tone values (output values), with black on the bottom and lighter values progressing to white at the top. Use the tone curve to tweak the adjustments you make to a photo in the Basic panel.

If a point on the curve moves up, it becomes a lighter tone; if it moves down, it becomes darker. A straight, 45-degree line indicates no changes to the tonal scale: The original input values exactly match the output values. You may see a tone curve that isn't straight when you first view a photo that you haven't adjusted. This initial curve reflects default adjustments that Lightroom Classic applied to your photo during import.

The Darks and Lights sliders affect mainly the middle region of the curve. The Highlight and Shadows sliders affect mainly the ends of the tonal range.

To make adjustments to the tone curve, do any of the following:

• Click on the curve and drag up or down. As you drag, the affected region is highlighted and the related slider moves. The original and new tonal values are displayed in the upper-left of the tone curve.

• Drag any of the four Region sliders left or right. As you drag, the curve moves within the affected region (Highlights, Lights, Darks, Shadows). The region is highlighted in the tone curve graph. To edit curve regions, drag the split controls at the bottom of the tone curve graph.

• Click to select the Targeted Adjustment tool  in the upper-left of the Tone Curve panel and then click on an area in the photo that you want to adjust. Drag or press the Up and Down Arrow keys to lighten or darken the values for all similar tones in the photo.

• Choose an option from the Point Curve menu: Linear, Medium Contrast, or Strong Contrast. The setting is reflected in the curve but not in the region sliders.

  Note: The Point Curve menu is blank for photos imported with metadata and previously edited with the Adobe Camera Raw tone curve.

To make adjustments to individual points on the tone curve, choose an option from the Point Curve menu, click the Edit Point Curve button , and do any of the following:

• Choose an option from the Channel pop-up menu. You can edit all three channels at once, or choose to edit the Red, Green, or Blue channel individually.

• Click to add a point.

• Right-click (Windows) or Control-click (Mac OS) and choose Delete Control Point to remove a point.

• Drag a point to edit it.

• To return to a linear curve at any time, right-click (Windows) or Control-click (Mac OS) anywhere in the graph and choose Flatten Curve.

Video tutorial: Adjustments with the Tone Curve

Adjustments with Tone Curves

Fine-tune image colors with HSL sliders

Use the HSL and Color panels in the Develop module to adjust individual color ranges in your photo. For example, if a red object looks too vivid and distracting, you can adjust it using the Saturation slider for Red. Note that all similar reds in the photo will be affected.

The adjustments you make in the HSL and Color panels produce similar results, but the two panels organize the sliders in different ways. To open a panel, click its name in the HSL/Color/B&W panel header.

The slides in these panels work on specific color ranges:

Hue adjusts the tone of each individual color and changes the color. For example, you can change a blue sky (and all other blue objects) from cyan to purple.

Changes the color vividness or purity of the color. For instance, you can change a blue sky from gray to highly saturated blue.

Changes the brightness of the color range.

Make adjustments in the HSL panel

Make adjustments in the Color panel

Adjust the color calibration for your camera

You can also customize camera profiles using the standalone DNG Profile Editor utility. The free DNG Profile Editor and documentation for it are available for download at DNG Profiles - Adobe Labs.

Save default settings for cameras

You can save new camera raw defaults for each camera model. Change preference options to determine whether the camera serial number and ISO settings are included in the defaults.

In Presets preferences, you can choose Reset Default Develop Settings to revert to the original settings.

Work in grayscale

Convert a photo to gray tones

Black & White Mix in the B&W panel converts color images to monochrome grayscale images, providing control over how individual colors convert to gray tones.

Tone a grayscale photo

Use the color wheels in the Color Grading panel to color a grayscale photo. You can add one color throughout the tonal range, such as a sepia effect, or create a split tone effect in which a different color is applied to the shadows and the highlights. The extreme shadows and highlights remain black and white.

You can also apply special effects, such as a cross-processed look, to a color photo.

Press the following keys while dragging on the color wheel to get into different modes:

• Alt (Windows)/Option (macOS): Fine Adjust mode. It gives more control to fine tune Saturation and Hue.
• Shift: Saturation only mode.
• Ctrl (Windows)/Command (macOS): Hue only mode.

You can also adjust the Hue and Saturation by using the following keyboard shortcuts while hovering over the color wheels.

Work with single-channel grayscale images

Grayscale mode images from Photoshop have no color data, but you can make tonal adjustments to them in Lightroom Classic using the tone adjustments in the Basic panel or Tone Curve panel. You can also apply color toning effects using the options in the Color Grading panel. Lightroom Classic handles the photo as an RGB image and exports it as RGB.

Video tutorial: Work with B&W adjustments

Explore how to take an image from color to black and white in some very creative ways.