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:

  1.  How does it differ from HSL?
  2. 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.

Blake Rudis
f.64 Academy and f.64 Elite are the brainchildren of Blake Rudis. While he is a landscape photographer, he is most passionate about post-processing images in Photoshop and mentoring others.

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!
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