5 Basic Lightroom Techniques You Need To Use with Vanessa Joy
Lightroom is a great tool in the arsenal of any photographer. If you’re serious about photography, you likely already use Lightroom. In this post, I’ll share with you some of my favorite tips that improve my workflow and help to create more compelling images. You may already know and use some of these basic Lightroom techniques, but hopefully you’ll learn something that will allow you to be more expressive the next time you open Lightroom.
1. Adjust Specific Colors
This technique will only work if you have distinct colors to mess around with that aren’t the same as the skin tones you’re photographing (reds and oranges). The hue section of the HSL controls allows you to adjust individual colors, which can be a lot of fun to play with. The little circle icon next to each option will let you select a specific color to adjust. Just click on the icon, then go to the image and click on the color you want to change. Now, with the mouse button still down, slide the mouse just as you would over the slider control.
With this method, you can change only specific colors, provided your image has enough color separation between the objects. This is something you can spend all day just tweaking and adjusting for endless creative possibilities.
You can change objects in the photo to match the color of the bridesmaids’ dresses in wedding photographs, or just create an entirely new color palette for the scene that’s more aesthetically pleasing than what was at the actual location. It’s best to start with the hue to find the basic color that you want, and then try to come in with the saturation and lightness to refine it so that it more precisely matches the color you have in mind.
The gradient tool is underutilized in Lightroom. A good use of it is to fix those blown-out skies in your photographs. The blue sky preset dragged from the top will add a slight bit of blue to an otherwise blown-out, white sky. You’ll probably need to adjust it a bit with the exposure and saturation tools.
