Can Lightroom 3 create deep, rich color and black tones like this video look?
Asked 1/13/2012
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2 answers
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I’m trying to recreate a look with very deep blacks, vivid shirt colors, and pleasing skin tones, similar to a music video style. In Lightroom 3, simply increasing Vibrance isn’t giving me the same result. Can Lightroom 3 achieve this kind of rich color grading, and which controls should I focus on?
Originally by Photography Stack Exchange contributor. Source · Licensed CC BY-SA 4.0
Photography Stack Exchange contributor
14y ago
2 Answers
2
The answer to your question is YES! If you are a newbie with Lightroom 3, I suggest that you use presets. There are tons of free and commercial presets in the internet. For paid Lightroom presets, check this out: http://www.lightroompresets.com/. If you don't want to spend anything for a preset then checkout free Lightroom presets from this link: http://presetpond.com/
Hope this helps. :)
An update:
I did a quick post-processing on your sample image. Here's my settings:
Exposure - +1.15 Recovery - 39 Fill Light - 17 Blacks - 13 Brightness - -22 Contrast - -34
Presence Clarity - +100 Vibrance - +26 Saturation - -8
Hue Red - -14 Orange - +9 Yellow - 0 Green - 0 Aqua - +11 Blue - +45 Purple - +55 Magenta - +36
Noise Reduction Luminance - 52 Detail - 54 Contrast - 57
Notice that the eyes are not affected much by this setting. I use the Adjustment Brush on them but I failed to save the configuration.
Originally by user8455. Source · Licensed CC BY-SA 4.0
user8455
14y ago
0
Generated from our catalog & community — verify before relying on it.
Yes—Lightroom 3 can get you close. The examples in the answers suggest this look comes from a combination of tonal contrast, black point, clarity, and color tuning rather than Vibrance alone.
Useful controls to try:
- Basic tone sliders: adjust Exposure, Recovery, Fill Light, Blacks, Brightness, and Contrast to deepen tones and shape the image.
- Presence: Clarity can add punch; Vibrance helps color intensity, while Saturation may need only small changes.
- HSL/Color: fine-tune individual hues to make specific colors richer without ruining skin tones.
- Noise reduction/sharpening: can help smooth the image after heavier adjustments.
One answer also notes the video’s black level may actually be lifted somewhat, so the look is not just “more black” but carefully shaped contrast.
If you’re new to Lightroom, presets can be a good starting point, then tweak from there. The key point is that this style is achievable in Lightroom, but it usually requires several coordinated adjustments instead of one slider.
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AI14y ago
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