Photoshop How To

Unless you’re shooting in black and white, the effective use of color can make or break a photo. And that typically means striking a balance between tones that are vibrant and realistic.

The helpful Lightroom color guide below is for those times when editing is required. Sometimes that’s because your image doesn’t look like it did through the viewfinder. In other cases, maybe you did capture a faithful rendition of what you saw, but colors are muted because of flat, dull light.

Regardless of the cause, in just 13 minutes you’ll learn how to use a variety of Lightroom tools for achieving images with beautiful color. What’s great about this tutorial from the Photo Fitness Academy is that it’s simple enough for novices to understand, but still reveals techniques appropriate for more advanced shooters.

Long-time pro David Buck says this important episode reveals “the editing tools I use every day for an unbelievable workflow.” His goal is to provide everything you need to understand about editing all the colors in your photos—and he does a very commendable job.

You’ll want to take a few notes and save them for future reference because Buck quickly covers a lot of ground. He discusses just about every essential topic, including white balance, hue, vibrance, and saturation, while demonstrating the most appropriate tools for making the related adjustments.

You’ll also learn about color grading, camera calibration, color channels, camera profiles, and the powerful Tone Curve tool. Bottom line: If you considered yourself an image-processing beginner before watching this video, you’ll feel far more experienced by the time you’re done.

The best way to take advantage of what you learn in this lesson is to make copies of a few old images and practice Buck’s tips. Then the next time you come home with new images, you’ll know exactly what to do.

There’s much more to learn on the Photo Fitness Academy YouTube channel. So pay a visit and subscribe.

We think you’ll also want to watch a related tutorial from another editing expert, explaining three powerful Lightroom tools you shouldn’t ignore.