Color Grading with Lightroom Classic

The term 'color grading' can be interpreted in many ways.

- Ashok Kandimalla

Picture 1: The color wheel.

For our article, let us define it as the process of adjusting and enhancing the colors in an image to achieve a desired look or mood. It usually involves adjusting the hue, saturation, and luminance parts of the image based on, in our case, tonal (that is, brightness) values.

To make things clearer, we will differentiate it from color corrections. These are meant for altering the colors to match that of the original. This operation is often done to remove any color biases that might have risen out of the wrong white balance settings.

Split toning was a technique that harks back to the film era. It involves applying a specific color (confusingly called “toning”) to the highlights or shadows.

(To avoid any ambiguity, we will use the word 'tone' only with reference to brightness and not color). Usually, the two different colors are applied for the highlight and shadows and are usually picked up from the colors that are on the opposite sides of the color wheel (Picture 1). This was called 'split-toning.' As an example, warmer colors (like yellow or orange) are applied to the highlights, and cooler ones (like blue) are applied to the shadows. By controlling the application and blending of these, a variety of effects can be created. Originally, this was a technique used for monochromatic images, but now it is commonly used in color photography. Also, note that this is different from coloring or tinting the entire picture in a single color like sepia or cyan. One interesting application is the use of color grading to get the effect of 'cross processing' that film aficionados might recall.