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Vibrance and saturation are helpful tools for making basic color-related adjustments to your smartphone photos, and tweaking specific hues takes it a step further. However, to truly elevate your photos, mastering color grading is key.
1Using My Native Smartphone Photo Editor to Color Grade
Although Apple Photos doesn’t have the same color grading tools as apps like Lightroom, you’re able to still adjust the colors beyond vibrance and saturation. To do this, controlling thetintandtemperatureare both important.
The temperature control will let you edit the colors on a scale from blue to yellow. My photography style tends to lean toward film-style photos, and I likecreating vintage images on my smartphone, so I prefer to add warmth (yellow) to my images. Occasionally, I’ll make the temperature cooler (blue), like when working with pictures of snow.
The tint feature lets you edit the colors on a scale from green to magenta. Most of the time, I like adding a green tint to my images because it helps me perfect my style. I rarely move the slider toward the magenta tint, but you might want to if your style is different from mine, or if you want to correct unwanted color casts.
2Using Adobe Lightroom to Color Grade My Photos
While you have to pay $9.99/mo for Lightroom, I think it’s the best smartphone photo editing app and well worth the money. One ofthe best Lightroom mobile tipsI can give is to use thecolor grading wheels. There is one each formidtones,highlights, andshadows—plus aglobalone for changing the overall picture’s look.
I am very flexible with these color grading wheels and use them for almost all of my in-app photo editing. How I adjust the wheels depends on the image, and it will for you too.
The image below was taken late in the afternoon on a winter’s day, so I added a healthy amount of green to the highlights, orange to the midtones, and blue to the shadows.
In the picture below, which was taken on a snowy afternoon, I added some blue to the shadows. To balance it out, I added orange to the midtones and highlights, and a bit of magenta to the overall image.
Sometimes, I’ll change things up. In the picture below, I added a lot of blue to the shadows and highlights (something I rarely do), and also made the midtones more orange.
Besides changing the colors in each part of the image, you can also choose how you want to balance your colors. Moreover, you have the option to add luminance; I often do this when I want the sky to look brighter than it is. Lightroom has a blending tool to integrate everything nicely.
Download:Lightroom foriOS|Android(Free, in-app purchases available)
3Using Photoshop Express to Color Grade My Photos
Photoshop Express doesn’t have the same color grading wheels as Lightroom. However, it does havesplit toning—which is what Lightroom Classic used to have before replacing it with the color grading wheels. Split toning is trickier to master, but you can achieve some excellent results.
When you use split toning, you’ll see two dots. On the left, you can control theshadows. On the right, you can change the colors in yourhighlights. In the image I edited below, I swapped them; as a result, there’s more green in the picture’s shadows.
It’s very easy to overdo the hue and saturation in split toning. Because of this, I recommend keeping the dots close to the top or bottom of the graph. Once you’ve got a basic understanding of how you want your picture to look, you can move these dots around. To finish off the picture, move the slider above the split toning to the left or right to adjust the color balance.
Download:Photoshop Express foriOS|Android(Free, in-app purchases available)
Color grading is one of the most powerful yet underrated ways to transform your photos, and learning how to master these tools will make your images truly stand out. While I recommend using Lightroom for the full set of features, you can still make impressive edits in your phone’s native photo editor. After four years of experimenting with color grading, my advice is to dive in now—your photos will thank you for it!
