Learn how to convey your artistic vision, and create a consistent style within a portfolio
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Colour grading is often used in photography and film-making to improve the aesthetics of stills or footage and create a narrative. It refers to the process of tweaking and enhancing the colours in an image, whether you want to generate a warm, cool, vibrant, muted or even historical look. We might shift the brightness, saturation and hue of shadows and mid-tones to get a result that’s more atmospheric and moody than what our camera saw at the time.
Colour grading has soared in popularity as editing software has become more intuitive and content creators look for ways to distinguish their work. In fact, it’s hard to see a photographer’s Instagram feed now without noticing their use of cinematic grading and the presence of downloadable presets.
Editing tones yourself in software such as Lightroom or Adobe Camera Raw will help to make your portfolio unique and recognisable – not to mention give you an understanding of how colour and storytelling are linked. Here’s one way to achieve a stylised colour grade in Adobe Camera Raw. We recommend that you take the steps below and then apply a unique colour mix to your own photos.
Tool guide
HSL Control the Hue, Saturation and Luminance of colours, altering the relative tint, intensity and brightness respectively
Color Grading Add colours to different tonal ranges, pushing a theme or split toning – applying contrasting colours to highlights, shadows and mid-tones
Targeted Adjustments Use Targeted Adjustment Tools when you don’t want to edit all of the colours in an image, only those in a similar range
BEFORE
EDITING TECHNIQUES
AFTER
1 Start with White Balance After loading your im
