Color Correction Look Book: Creative Grading Techniques for Film and Video

Chapter 22. Vibrance and Targeted Saturation

Full, saturated colours have an emotional significance I want to avoid.

—Lucian Freud (1922–2011)

A simple linear increase in saturation throughout the entire image doesn’t always produce the most attractive result. However, an increase in saturation in a specific region of saturation intensity can create much more interesting and lively effects, so long as you target the right parts of the image.

Vibrance

Photographic applications such as Lightroom have a saturation control that’s targeted at low-saturation color in an image. This control is referred to as vibrance, which typically excludes highly saturated areas of the image, as well as skin tones, letting you subtly enrich an image without oversaturating ...