For years I wished I could reach for tint and temperature inside Photoshop the same way I do in Adobe Camera Raw and Lightroom. Now we finally have it. The new Color and Vibrance adjustment brings those sliders right into the layers stack.
At first glance, it looks basic. Temperature, tint, vibrance, saturation. That’s it. You might think, “No big deal. I already have that in ACR and Lightroom.”
I still use ACR or Lightroom to set the global white balance for the whole image. I want the base file to feel neutral and honest. Once that’s in place, this new tool in Photoshop becomes something else. For me it has turned into a local color grading engine.
When I push the temperature slider here, it doesn’t act like a flat color wash. It feels more like the whole image is getting warmer or cooler and brighter. Even the grays shift. When I compare it to HSL, Color Balance, and Photo Filter, it stands out. HSL mostly protects the gray values. Color Balance gives me a straight color bias. Photo Filter lays a veil of color over the top. This new tool pushes warmth and coolness with more life in the tones.
That’s where it gets interesting.
Because it’s an adjustment layer, I can mask it. I can paint warm light into one part of the frame and cool shadows into another. I can use it like the old American landscape painters did: warm colors to pull things toward the viewer, cool colors to push them back. Foreground elk, warm. Background trees and hills, cool. Depth through color, not just blur.
Blend If takes it even farther. When I combine this Color and Vibrance layer with Blend If, I can send cool color only into the darkest darks or warm color only into the glowing highlights. It starts to feel like I am baking sunlight into the file instead of just sliding a hue around.
Under the hood, it reminds me of a trick I’ve used for years: a solid color fill set to a strong blend mode, like Vivid Light, with the fill lowered. In the past, I had to choose the color, change the blend mode, and dial the fill for every single look. Now, with this new tool, it feels like that whole process is baked into two simple sliders. Pick warm, pick cool, fine-tune tint, and move on.
It has a simple UI, but it integrates well with serious workflows very quickly. Global white balance in ACR or Lightroom, then local color grading in Photoshop with this adjustment, masks, and Blend If. Simple steps, big control.
Inside f.64 Elite, I’ve been using this in critique sessions all month. It has opened a lot of “aha” moments for people who struggle with warm/cool balance and depth in their images. If color grading has felt hard or random to you, this might be the tool that finally makes it click.
Right now I’m running a “Zero-Pressure” Black Friday deal. New f.64 Elite members can receive a 5-day free trial. No purchase necessary, 5 days for free. (You will be billed after the 5 day trial, be sure to cancel before that happens if you don’t intend on staying). Click Here to become a member today!
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!
