Editing Tutorials

HSL Adjustments Are the Reason Your Colors Look Flat (And How to Fix That)
Editing Tutorials

HSL Adjustments Are the Reason Your Colors Look Flat (And How to Fix That)

I was editing a set of golden hour portraits last spring, and something was wrong. The exposure looked right. The white balance was dialed in. The highlights were pulled back, the shadows were lifted — all the usual moves. But the image still felt like it had a film of gray gauze stretched over it. Flat. Lifeless. Like the color was embarrassed to be there. The problem wasn’t my global adjustments.

HSL in Lightroom: The Color Control Most Editors Treat Like a Mystery Box
Editing Tutorials

HSL in Lightroom: The Color Control Most Editors Treat Like a Mystery Box

I was editing a set of golden hour portraits last spring, and the skin tones looked like the subject had been standing inside a traffic cone. The overall white balance was fine. The exposure was good. But somewhere between the warm light and my heavy-handed orange push in the tone curve, everything had gone sideways in a very specific, very unflattering direction. The fix took about forty-five seconds once I opened the HSL panel.