top of page
Writer's pictureMary Koval

Vibrance vs. Saturation in Editing

With photography one must take care not to over saturate images.

An oversaturated image is easy to identify. Saturation is a uniform bumping up the intensity of all colors in your shot, regardless of the starting point of the colors. This can result in clipping (over saturation of certain colors which results in loss of detail in those areas) and over saturation of skin tones leaving them looking too orange and unnatural. The word "clowny" comes to mind because this slider creates colors that are nearly too colorful.

Vibrance is a smart-tool which cleverly increases the intensity of the more muted colors and leaves the already well-saturated colors alone. It’s sort of like fill light, but for colors. Vibrance also prevents skin tones from becoming overly saturated and unnatural to preserve realism.

Photoshop is among the most complex and valuable pieces of software available to photographers.

If you just want more intense colors in your images, chances are Vibrance adjustment is the way to go.

15 views0 comments

Recent Posts

See All
bottom of page