Autumn Colour Grading: Adobe Lightroom CC,
Therefore, creating an autumn color grade for an outdoor portrait in Lightroom focuses on enhancing the warm tones—reds, oranges, and yellows—while often giving the image a rich, slightly moody, or warm and inviting feel.
Autumn Colour Grading: Adobe Lightroom CC,
🎨 Key Adjustments for Autumn Tones:
Therefore, the goal is to emphasize the typical fall palette while maintaining pleasing skin tones for your portrait subject.
1. Basic Panel Adjustments:
Therefore, these adjustments set the foundation for the overall mood and light.
- Exposure: Adjust to make sure the subject is well-lit. You might slightly underexpose for a moodier look.
- Contrast: Increase slightly (+10 to +30) for a punchier feel, or decrease slightly for a softer, matte look.
- Highlights / Whites: Drop these down (\approx -20 to -40) to recover detail in the bright areas (like skies or bright leaves).
- Shadows / Blacks: Increase shadows (\approx +20 to +40) and decrease blacks (\approx -30 to -50) to lift the dark areas, often creating a slightly matte or lifted-shadow effect common in autumn edits.
- Temperature (White Balance): Increase the Temperature slider (\approx +5 to +20) to add overall warmth (yellow/orange), reinforcing the autumn feeling.
- Vibrance/Saturation: Increase Vibrance (\approx +10 to +30) to boost the muted colors, and often decrease Saturation slightly (\approx -5 to -15) for a less aggressive color pop, or increase both for a very vivid look.
Autumn Colour Grading: Adobe Lightroom CC,
2. HSL/Color Mixer (Hue, Saturation, Luminance)
Therefore, this is the most critical step for color grading the autumn foliage.
- Reds, Oranges, Yellows:
- Hue: Shift the Red and Yellow hues slightly toward Orange (Red: \approx -5, Yellow: \approx -10 to -20).
- Saturation: Boost the Saturation of all three colors (\approx +20 to +40) to make the fall leaves vibrant.
- Luminance: Adjust Luminance to control brightness. You might slightly decrease Red/Orange Luminance (\approx -5 to -15) for richness and slightly increase Yellow Luminance (\approx +5 to +15) to make bright leaves glow.
- Greens (If present):
- Hue: Shift the Green hue toward Yellow (\approx +30 to +60) to transform any lingering green into a warmer, dying-leaf color.
- Saturation: Decrease Green Saturation (\approx -30 to -70) to mute them, ensuring they don’t distract from the main autumn colors.
- Luminance: Decrease Green Luminance (\approx -10 to -30) to darken them, adding to the moody look.
Autumn Colour Grading: Adobe Lightroom CC,
3. Split Toning/Color Grading (Optional but Effective)
Therefore, this adds a final color overlay to the highlights and shadows.
- Highlights: Introduce warm tones (e.g., Hue: \approx 40-60, Saturation: \approx 5-15) to highlights to reinforce the golden hour or warm sun effect.
- Shadows: Introduce cool tones (e.g., Hue: \approx 200-240, Saturation: \approx 5-15) to the shadows to add depth and separation from the warm highlights.
4. Calibration Panel (Advanced)
Therefore, the Calibration panel affects how Lightroom interprets the entire color spectrum and can be used to shift the overall feel.
- Red Primary: Increase Saturation and slightly adjust Hue (e.g., Hue: \approx +5) to add a rich red/orange cast to the entire image.
- Green Primary: In other words, often slightly decrease Hue (\approx -5 to -15) and decrease Saturation for a subtle muted look.
- Blue Primary: Decrease Saturation to prevent blues from overpowering the warm tones, and slightly shift Hue toward cyan/teal (\approx -5 to -15) for an appealing color contrast with the warm autumn colors.
Autumn Colour Grading: Adobe Lightroom CC,
💡 Focus on Skin Tones:
Therefore, when editing, always check your subject’s skin tone. If the skin looks too red or yellow after the global adjustments:
- In other words, go to the Color Mixer (HSL).
- However, select the Orange color, as this is most critical for the skin.
- In other words, slightly adjust the Hue until the skin looks natural, and cautiously adjust Saturation and Luminance to finalize the look.
