How to get more Color out of your RAW files in ACR and Lightroom
Do you want more Color in your photos? I am sure, we all do 🙂 Have you ever heard someone say, “Oh the way Canon’s colors come out are so great” or “I just love the color in Leica Raw Files” or “the skin tones from ____ camera are so great.” I know I have.
Those statements are usually made after someone imports a RAW file from a camera and start inspecting the colors rendered from the camera’s sensor. Every camera produces different RAW data with a different look for their colors (this is regardless of the white balance). Because of this color difference from camera to camera, I have seen people who are brand loyal based on Color alone.
Well…
I have good news for you. With a little bit of tweaking in the Calibration section of ACR or Lightroom, you can make the colors of ANY raw file shine!
In the past, I shied away from this area in ACR for two reasons. First, I didn’t understand it. I didn’t know why I would use the Calibration section for colors when I could control my colors in the HSL tab. Second, it was never that useful before Photoshop CC 2020 (calibration version 5) as it produced some pretty wild results in versions 1-4.
I am already predicting your questions because I had the same:
- How does it differ from HSL?
- How does it differ from Tint and Temperature?
In today’s video, I am going to give you the lowdown on how to use the Camera Calibration section to get more beautiful, natural, and robust Color out of your raw files.
For Blake, it's all about the art and process synergy. He dives deep into complex topics and makes them easy to understand through his outside-the-box thinking so that you can use these tricks in your workflow today!
Great stuff! Extremely informative…
Great idea. Got the best color ever.
Hi Blake, I loved this Video so much that I went out and bought five sheets of cardboard [R, G and B as well as Black & Mid-Gray.
I plan to take photos of all five colors with my various cameras and use the [lens calibration] in Photoshop to test the difference in the color In-Camera.
I would welcome your comments.
Great how the hell did you find out about this?
So clever
I experimented like crazy ?
30-40 hours… Lol
I like what I saw and will give it a go. Thanks.
Very interesting, thanks.
Nice tutorial. The zone chart with colors looks like an extremely useful tool. Is it something you created, found in Photoshop, or somewhere else?
Thanks for doing so many tutorials on color. I’m finally started understanding how everything works together. Keep them coming.
Good explanation.
Thank you, Blake. Calibration appeared too hard to use–you have explained it well.
There’s hardly anybody on the internet from whom you will learn more about Photoshop’s role in photography. Another great job, Blake.
305/5000
Thank you Blake for teaching me a new thing on PS.
It is always better to learn like that, than to try for yourself and miss the basic principle which leads to abandon the tool.
As usual, this video is complete and easy to understand.
Thanks again and keep up the good work
I’ve played with that before, but forgotten all about it. Certainly never took the experimenting as far as you did. Super happy to have that back on my workflow radar. Thanks, Blake.
Have experimented with these sliders but didn’t really know how to use them correctly. Thank you Blake, now I understand what and why they do what they do. Great tutorial.
That was excellent. I have been disappointed with the HSL sliders in the past when trying to get accurate colors. This looks like a good fix.
Thank you for the tutorial!
Great info, Blake! I’m trying to compare this effect to how you demo’d the Selective Color (Luminosity / Normal Blend Mode) (CS) technique. I have found that SC is awesome for color and temperature adjustments. Granted working closer to raw is probably much better. However SC seems to have great flexibility. (BTW it is very enlightening to drop a color sampler spot on an image and watch the pixel values change in PS when using CS.)
Please pardon my dyslexia / lesdyxia. CS = SC = Selective Color.
The Calibration Panel has been removed from Lightroom Classic 2019, hasn’t it? Can you still do this in LR?
I was like you were about the calbration tab, however, now I have a good understanding of color in my photos. I really appreciate you tutorial in helping me with my struggle to adjust the color schemes. Thank you.
Nice. I dove into this after you mentioned it on our last eagle photo outing and it reminded me of some of the color work i used to do in LAB mode with 32 bit files. But this has better precision and can be assigned to presets. I really like the overall look because I tend to avoid HSL adjustments in Lightroom or ACR, preferring gradient mapping to affect shifts in colors. This gives a good starting point for raw files.
So with respect to workflow. Do basic adjustments first, then adjust calibration? I can see how this will improve color adjustments in PS.
This was great! one of your best 15 min tutorials. Plan to incorporate into my workflow
This is great Blake. I struggle with getting accurate colors in different scenes. Thanks.
Good stuff. Tried this on some photos of vegetables this morning, and found the results very pleasing. Excellent tip (you’re the best).
This is great. Something I will use in my workflow. THANKS!
Great stuff. Definitely going to take some testing.
Thanks Blake. Great stuff as always.
Hey Blake! From personal observation and experimenting, I think the calibration adjustments are more channel based–much like the Blend If Cold Masks. I do not state this as a matter of fact.
What do you think? 🙂
Once again Blake you are amazing thanks for your continued education
Great stuff with a clear explanation!
Fabulous. Can’t wait to try out all this new stuff.
Excellent explanation and training, Blake! Great capture of the eagle as well!! Keep your immune system up! Bless you, my brother!
Great eye-opening information. Very much appreciated!
Another winner, Blake.
I’m always amazed at your level of energy, enthusiasm and intuition with respect to finding innovative ways to use Photoshop.
I will certainly experiment with this for sure!
Thanks so much.
Thank you so much Blake, beautifully explained and I am really looking forward to bringing this application into my workflow. ~Rae
This was an excellent video on how to use the calibration section for colors in Lightroom Classic. I tried it on several of my photos I recently took, and it made a significant difference in my photos.
OMG! ANOTHER fantastic tip to help with the quality of my photos. Every time you send one of these tutorials I want to go back through 10 years of photography and re-work all my portfolio! Thank you for being so attentive to helping us achieve better results.
Great material. Very useful can’t wait to play with it
Blake, I’ve learned so much from you over the years, but this is a game-changer for me! I was working on a client’s images and having a hard time with color due to the images being shot under challenging lighting conditions. I’d already put a lot of time into post-processing, so didn’t want to start all over with my RAW files. I decided to try the calibration with JPG files. And surprise! The colors turned out so much better than all my previous post-processing had been able to do! Next time I’ll do the color calibrating with RAW, but for right now, even JPGs can be helped. Thanks a million! You’re a genius and a truly great teacher. Just bought one of your classes on Creative Live.
Hi Blake,
Great tutorial as always. You talked about white balance in the video. Are you using the calibration adjustments instead of the white balance tint/temperature sliders, or would you augment the white balance adjustment with the calibration section.
Thank for any reply.
Blake,
As is often true, I’m late to the party. But, I finally was able to watch this today. It is superb. I’ve finished it and already have a challenging landscape photograph from the Zion Narrows to work on. I’ll definitely add this to my LR/ACR tool set.
Mark Rindflesh
Thank you, this litle tutorial has saved my bacon on 2 over-exposed and other wise flat images. I also use it on several B/W negs that I had scanned.
The shadow filter did very little for me, however the green and blue helped to pop some of the subtler shadows.
As part of my work flow – this were I start now.
Very good i will use it