7 Adobe Lightroom Tips to Recover Dull, Washed-Out Photos
While Adobe Lightroom isn’t a magic solution to fix all of the problems in your photos, it’s a great tool for making comprehensive edits. One of the most common issues that photographers run into is having images that lack color when taken from the camera.
Luckily, you have plenty of solutions to fix this issue in Lightroom and make your pictures look more vibrant. And in this article, you’ll discover a selection of your best options.
1. The Tone Curve Feature
If you’ve watched a good number ofphotography videos on YouTube, you’ll probably have heard of theTone Curvefeature. The tool is one of the most popular ways to adjust photos; in addition to using it for stylistic purposes, it’s possible to try recovering dull and washed-out images with the feature.
it’s possible to edit multiple areas of your image by creating different spots to drag up or down. If you move these areas down, you’ll make parts of your picture darker—whereas doing the opposite will brighten certain parts of your photo.
You’ll find the Tone Curve feature when you scroll down on the right-hand toolbar; it’s within a standalone section. If you expand the Point Curve menu, you can choose the level of contrast you want in your pictures.
2. The Contrast Slider
One of the most basic but important Lightroom tools is theContrastslider. You can use this to change the brightness in different parts of your photo. You’ll find the main slider toward the top of your right-hand toolbar.
The Contrast slider is easy to understand. If you’re trying to fix a washed-out photo, you’ll probably want to move it to the right. Doing so will darken areas of your image and make it look less flat.
If you’re going to use the Contrast slider with the Tone Curve, using Contrast first is a good idea. Once you’ve done that, you’ll better understand what you need to do with the Tone Curve feature.
3. Vibrance and Saturation
VibranceandSaturationare two of the most important tools that all beginner Lightroom editors should learn how to use. Both will change the colors in your photos and are useful for recovering washed-out images.
Although the Vibrance and Saturation sliders are useful for adjusting your images, they’ll do so in different ways. Saturation will increase the overall color in your picture, so you might find this particularly useful if your image looks a little monotoned.
However, if you’ve already got some color in your photo, you might want to use Vibrance instead. The Vibrance slider will increase the colors in your image, which can help you avoid adding too much.
You can always try using the Vibrance and Saturation sliders together. Much of this will depend on your photography and not just whether you’ve got to recover a dull photo.
4. Calibration
Whether you canuse the Calibration featuredepends on if you use Lightroom Classic or Creative Cloud (CC). If you’re a Lightroom Classic user, you’ll find theCalibrationtool at the bottom of your screen. But, unfortunately, Lightroom CC does not include this feature.
When using Calibration, you change the tint in your shadows to be more green or magenta. On top of that, it’s possible to adjust the hue and saturation for red, green, and blue primaries. You might find it useful to increase the saturation in certain parts of your photo if they’re dulled out.
You can also reduce the saturation in other areas if the white balance isn’t quite right. If you use the Calibration tool, you should make your other adjustments first, as altering this section too early can make your photo look a little inconsistent later.
5. Reducing the Shadows
Another important slider that you should learn to use in your early days of Lightroom isShadows. You’ll find two: one is close to the top of the right-hand toolbar, whereas the other is in theTone Curvesection underRegion.
If your photo in Lightroom looks dull and washed out, you can move the Shadows slider to the left and darken those areas of your image. You will find this feature especially helpful if you’re going fora dark and moody photography style.
6. Adding a Camera Filter
If you own a Nikon camera, you will probably havenoticed a number of different camera profileson your device. That is also the case with numerous other camera manufacturers, such as Sony and FujiFilm. it’s possible to add profiles to JPEGs when you shoot in-camera, but what happens if you need to recover a dull and washed-out photo later?
You can add multiple profiles in Adobe Lightroom, which will vary depending on your chosen camera manufacturer. Some will increase the saturation in your picture, which can help you make your image look more appealing. And if the tone looks flat, you can pick something with darker shadows.
Note that it’s possible to only add manufacturer-specific camera filters in Lightroom for RAW files. JPEGs will show one color option and one another in monochrome. To add a camera filter, go to Profile and browse through your options.
In addition to manufacturer color filters, you’ll find a selection of pre-created filters that can help your images look more vibrant.
7. Use the Color Grading Wheels
Color grading has been a crucial part of the Lightroom ecosystemsince late 2020, and it works similarly to the feature you’ll find in Premiere Pro and Camera Raw. You can use the color grading wheels to adjust your highlights, shadows, and mid-tones.
The color grading wheels in Lightroom can help you add hue and saturation to your photos, but that’s not all. To revive dull images, you might also want to use the luminance sliders at the bottom of each wheel.
In addition to having a color wheel for each section of your photo, you can change how the overall picture looks by going to the Global wheel instead.
Make Your Images Look Better With Lightroom
While some people think that editing photos is cheating, that is not the case. Your camera doesn’t always capture what your eye sees, and you might want to make edits to your image to ensure that it matches your style and personality better.
You can perform several tasks to recover images in Lightroom that otherwise looked a little dull. For example, you can reduce the shadows and add camera filters. You also have several color-editing options at your disposal, and these can help you truly bring your pictures to life.
Follow these tips, and you’ll be on your way to creating stunning Lightroom edits.
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