If You Aren’t Using This Lightroom Tool, You’re Missing Out

If you follow my YouTube channel, you may know that I make a few videos about Lightroom Classic. I manage my images in LR, and do some editing there as well. It’s a really solid product that has come a long way in the last few years. Between the enhancements to masking, and the addition of new tools, it just gets better and better.

One of the tools that I only became familiar with in the last year or so is called Calibration. Although it doesn’t sound like it, it is a color tool, and it is AWESOME. I use it every time I edit an image, but of course that’s because I love color so much. But once I started using it, I found so many reasons to love it.

Want my free editing guide for Lightroom Classic? Just click here: https://jimnix.com/lightroom-classic-editing-guide 

At first glance, you notice that it’s just a few sliders. But the magic is revealed once you start moving them around. I usually start at the bottom with the Blue sliders - first Saturation and then Hue - and then move up to Green and Red. You don’t need them all on an image because you will quickly discover that you can have a HUGE impact on colors with this tool.

And you will also notice that just because you move the Blue Saturation slider, that does not just mean the blues in your image get more saturated. This is not HSL. What happens is that the RGB values in every pixel get affected. You see, all pixels have an RBG value, which represents the mixture of red, green and blue in each pixel. So when you move the Blue Saturation slider, it will impact the blue saturation in every pixel. And that does not mean that everything just turns blue. It really has a beautiful and interesting impact on an image, which is why I am so addicted to it LOL.

So the overall outcome on your colors can be subtle or dramatic. This can be used for minor color correction, or for much bigger creative color moves (which is how I tend to use it). It’s great on landscapes of course, but I also love to use it on cityscapes shot in lower light (blue hour or evening). I often find the yellow color from city lights and street lights doesn’t look that great, so Calibration is excellent at helping me fix that.

Check out this video which shows it in action on a landscape: