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Saturation tools are terrible. Do this instead.

Todd Dominey

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Every raw image needs some amount of saturation to bring out color. But which tools in Lightroom do the job best, and why? In this video, I take a look at saturation and vibrance tools in Lightroom and share with you my take on which tools are best.

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20 Comments

@mpolikk 1 year ago

Love seeing other people's way of working

@beneath_the_woods 6 months ago (edited)

In darktable you have separate saturation sliders for the low, mid and high tones (perceptual saturation grading) so you can get more natural looks by not saturating the high and low tones too much. You can even move around the crossover points, it's bonkers.

@cmichaelhaugh8517 1 year ago

I almost never use the saturation slider but have been using vibrance freely. Thanks for suggesting a more nuanced approach.

@kln9646 6 months ago

It really just depends on the situation. Some times saturation slider works well for the photo, other times it doesn’t. You as the photographer have to decide when it’s appropriate to use it.

@AlexBabul-m9o 6 months ago

Your videos are always so helpful, thank you!

@brianm.butler8799 6 months ago

You know you're watching a professional photographer when they're talking about how to deal with unnatural fluorescent blues and then show you a shade of light grey in the waters reflection 😅

@doug.s6289 1 year ago

I find it much easier and less trouble adjusting saturation and luminance, without the issues in RGB mode, by converting to Lab mode, adjust, return to RGB. Safe and easier to control adjustments. Or adjust using layer blend-if in Lab color mode, is often useful. Or both if really need fine control.

@shotbyquinoa 4 months ago

Man your videos are instructive! 🔥

@AyNour-d5y 10 months ago

Thank you for your explanation. Your tutorial was great and very practical.

@luisjg2628 1 year ago

Excellent! Many photographers "paint" their images, it's true. As creators of their work, they interpret and convey their message from the scene.

Something that can help when starting a photo editing or development is to start with a histogram with a neutral profile. I wouldn't use landscape profiles, for example.

In fact, in film, many cinematographers—99 percent—shoot their sequences in neutral and then begin color correction and grading.

@sonofoneintheuniverse 6 months ago (edited)

Spot on video! My favourite is a slight color balance check and then HSL to select color ranges to fine adjust. No over saturation here! Never ever! Others do that well... 😊

@DaveStromberger 1 year ago

Hey Todd, how do you feel about the use of mist/diffusion/shimmer filters to take the edge off the "digital look?"

@hywel3143 6 months ago (edited)

Thanks Todd, an excellent tutorial. I use Capture One, which seems to have a hybrid saturation/vibrance slider even though it is labelled Saturation. Could you explain what C1 is doing when adjusting this slider please, because it seems much more natural and nuanced that the saturation tools in other apps?