When working with photos, many choose to have very saturated and rich colors. The problem with too much saturation is that it can cause clipping (a flattening of the range of colors). To help with this, Photoshop and Lightroom offer the Vibrance command. Unlike Saturation, Vibrance only boosts those parts of a photo that are less saturated. It also respects skin tones, which means photos look more natural when pumping up the intensity of color.

Fig 10-39 Vibrance1Step 1. Open the image Vibrance.jpg (provided for educational use only).

Fig 10-40 Vibrance2Step 2. You’ll first add a Saturation adjustment layer for comparison. In the Adjustments panel, click Saturation icon to add a new adjustment layer.

Fig 10-41 Vibrance3Step 3. Drag the Saturation slider to the right until the colors in the image start to clip.

Step 4. Discard the Saturation adjustment layer by clicking the trash icon at the bottom of the Adjustments panel. Click Yes in the dialog box that appears.

Fig 10-42 Vibrance4Step 5. In the Adjustments panel, click the Vibrance icon to add a new adjustment layer.

Step 6. Drag the Vibrance slider to the right to increase saturation without color clipping.

Fig 10-43 Vibrance5Step 7. To add a little more saturation overall (in a gentler fashion than the Saturation adjustment layer), use the Saturation slider in the Vibrance adjustment layer.