Adding some va-va-voom with vibrance

A few weeks back, we took a peruse around Lightroom's clarity slider, to see what it does to your photos and how you can get the best out of your photos by giving it a gentle nudge here and there. This week, it's the turn of the vibrance slider—clarity's bed-fellow—to come under the Photocritic microscope. With the vibrance pushed to +20, the greens look more alive, but the sweetpea petals aren't overcooked

Much the same as the clarity slider has its most pronounced effect on the mid-tones of your images, the vibrance slider is also a 'smart slider' and applies its effects selectively. Rather than adjusting the contrast in the mid-tones, a la clarity, vibrance takes hold of the more muted tones in your photo and gives them some oompf. It's a selective saturation slider, if you will.

This is where this balcony-dwelling geranium started out

With the saturation at +50, it's too much

... but with vibrance increased, the sky looks bluer while the reds aren't overdone

More often than not, vibrance will pick up on the blues and greens in a photo but go easier on the reds and oranges. This is great for bringing out the intensity of a sky or making a lawn look that bit more inviting while not letting your portrait subjects look as if they've been tangoed. I've heard some people refer to vibrance as being like 'fill light for colours'.

I've tweaked the contrast and white balance here, but vibrance and saturation are, as yet, untouched

You can see that with +60 on the saturation, my brother's skintone is odd, although the sky looks intense...

... increasing the vibrance, however, gives Josh a better skin tone and the sky a more intense colour. Much better! (Although I'd probably not go as far as +60, as I did here.)

With the exception of the sweetpea, I've not been exactly subtle with either the vibrance or the saturation in any of my examples here, but that's to give you a clear illustration of the difference between them. Usually, I'd be far more reserved and I'm sure you would be, too. But at least you know what vibrance does now, and can begin using it to intensify your colours without feeling you've chucked a red wash over your photos.