Adobe Colour profile - how much vib / sat do you add to Raw files in Lightroom?

mikeyw

mikeyw

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Hi,

I used to work with Adobe standard as my colour profile and usually worked mostly around +24 for Vibrance and +12 for Saturation.

However these are imho way overkill on the colour profile and i'm struggling to get to a level i'm happy with. Just wondering what others tend to apply when using this profile or have you stayed with the adobe standard profile?

I'm shooting Nikon so i'd imagine the values would be quite different got Canon / Sony etc.

TIA,
Mike.
 
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I rarely adjust Vibrance and almost never saturation.

I tend to use the Fuji camera style presets when I process raw files
Mostly I settle on Provia or Pro neg. but rarely one of the adobe presets.
My choice is often down to how the individual colours are clipped in the highlights, and how much colour detail is lost in them.
 
I very rarely if ever, increase vibrance or saturation.
I shoot pentax
Process from raw, so as far as I know, in camera presets are applied to jpeg only (might be wrong though), but in any case I use a neutral preset anyway.
 
ecoleman said:
There is no set number to use. I use whatever I think works best for the image.
Click to expand...

Absolutely.

I very rarely use the global colour sliders, I'll mostly go into the individual colours and adjust them separately if i need too, especially on B&W conversions.

Of course the best way to increase the brilliance of colours is via strong light, either natural or artificial (flash)
 
I generally increase both clarity and vibrance by 10ish, depending on the image. I also reduce contrast and saturation a small amount. My camera is a Canon if that matters.
 
john.margetts said:
I generally increase both clarity and vibrance by 10ish, depending on the image. I also reduce contrast and saturation a small amount. My camera is a Canon if that matters.
Click to expand...

Interesting on the amount of clarity, I never go above 4 , and raise contrast and drop blacks by 4 or 5 usually.
It is all image dependent of course and subject to change . But some things have limits I won't go above.
Clarity being one of them.
 
ecoleman said:
There is no set number to use. I use whatever I think works best for the image.
Click to expand...
Me too. I don't use Adobe stuff, so I can't comment on the numbers, but I find I often turn the saturation and vibrance up a bit, sometimes a lot, but also, I sometimes turn them down a bit. Same with contrast, usually up a bit, sometimes a lot, but I also sometimes turn it down a bit, sometimes a lot. I don't think I've ever turned sharpening down to soften an image, but sometimes I use none, and sometimes a lot. It depends a lot on which lens I'm using, some have distinctly less contrast and sharpness than others. It also depends a lot on the light, which is sometimes too bright and harsh, sometimes very boringly dim and flat.

Then of course there's whatever I'm aiming for in the particular image. I might want to exaggerate the natural mistiness of the image, or on the other hand I might to remove it as much as possible.
 
Never use saturation. Vibrance seems to produce a better result but I don’t use it much. Tend to use 18 clarity and 40 sharpening and sync those across all the images I’m editing. Luminance level depends on the ISO and I sync that across all images taken at that ISO. These together with masking the sharpening, setting the white and black points generally gets me in the ball park so that I rarely apply contrast. Quite often find the need to reduce the greens in an image for some reason so use the combined colour tool in the HSL panel and drag on the image rather than adjust the green slider itself.
 
Does anyone use the 'auto' function in lightroom to correct levels etc ?

In the main i find it pretty good but removes too much contrast for my liking from raw files.
 
mikeyw said:
Does anyone use the 'auto' function in lightroom to correct levels etc ?

In the main i find it pretty good but removes too much contrast for my liking from raw files.
Click to expand...

Never. I have tried auto settings from time to time But they are never more than starting points, so it is not worth the bother.

I tend to look at the GUI and change the sliders/settings and observe the changes to the image, as a series of iterations.

I usually make changes as an adjustment layer.
When I get things to my liking, I double check by turning the layer off and on a few times, to prove that what I have done is an improvement. If it is not, I dump it or try over again.
 
mikeyw said:
Does anyone use the 'auto' function in lightroom to correct levels etc ?

In the main i find it pretty good but removes too much contrast for my liking from raw files.
Click to expand...

With the latest version, yes, I do find that auto gets a very good ballpark look.
I rarely just leave it there though and just like vibrance and saturation all the other sliders are tweaked based on the image. I will also further PP my better images in PS
 
ecoleman said:
With the latest version, yes, I do find that auto gets a very good ballpark look.
I rarely just leave it there though and just like vibrance and saturation all the other sliders are tweaked based on the image. I will also further PP my better images in PS
Click to expand...

Yeah i find it reasonable - normally add some contrast back and a bit more vibrance. When you are doing 400 event / wedding pics need as much automation help as i can get. Match total exposure helps as well in some cases.
 
I rarely touch saturation on a 'normal' shot. By which I mean where I'm not trying to really punch the colours.

But I do add a bit of clarity to mine and hence need to increase the saturation to match.

That said, I never apply sharpening (mainly because I don't know how to use it).

I do like contrasty images though, so I almost always increase that.

I think being on this site has led me to be a little more reserved with the sliders though. ;)
 
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