Hue and Saturation

Adjustments - Hue and Saturation

Ken Fisher Adjustments - Hue and Saturation

The 3 main attributes/components of colour are Hue, Saturation, and Luminance.

1. Hue is a single colour cast or colour name. Green is a hue, orange is a hue, and so on. There are an infinite number of hues …

2. Saturation is the intensity, purity or amount of a hue.

3. Luminance is the amount of perceived brightness of a colour. The colour black has no luminance, whereas the colour white has the highest luminance.

The Hue / Saturation Adjustment Layer is used for colour correction. More specifically, it allows you to control Hue, Saturation and Luminance for each colour channel.

Hue / Saturation is great for changing the characteristics of a particular colour, not your overall “global” colour. When you make changes to a particular Hue, none of the other colour in your image are affected.

For instance, if the Reds in your image are too saturated, you would simply choose the “Red” Channel from the Drop-Down menu to desaturate your Reds to the desired level, without affecting any other colours in your image.

Or let’s say that the Greens in your landscape shot are too Blue/Green: Choose the “Green”Channel from the Drop-Down menu, then change the Hue to bring your Greens back to a more realistic colour, such as Forest Green, again without affecting any other colours in your image.

There are Four places you can access the Hue and Saturation Adjustment.

1. You can find it in the Image > Adjustments menu

P2 Adjustments - Hue and Saturation

2) You can click on the “New Adjustment Layer” button at the bottom the Layers Panel

3) You can also go to the menu Layers >New Adjustment Layer and choose it from that menu.

4. You can press the keyboard shortcut CTRL+U

P3 Adjustments - Hue and Saturation

This is the Hue and Saturation Dialog Box

Adjust The Hue

Drag the Hue slider and the colours all rotate round the colour wheel as shown in the two images above.

You can also target specific colour ranges by clicking the Master dropdown and selecting a colour range.

You can affect a specific colour range without affecting other colours in the image.

P4 Adjustments - Hue and Saturation

Adjust the Saturation Again, move the Saturation slider all the way to the right and you’ll see the effect of way too much saturation. Conversely, if you move the slider all the way to the left, your image will turn to shades of black and white.

Adjust the Luminance I rarely use this slider, it does not have enough control. It is more effective and less destructive to adjust your Lightness with Levels and/or Curves.