STEP BY STEP PRESERVE TONES

Open up your image in Lightroom and start with this common photo fix

01 Examine the colour mix

Load the processed image into the Develop module. As you move the cursor around the image you’ll see that the RGB values below the histogram change. The sampled dark-blue sky here is a mix of 28.2% Red, 34.7% Green and 50.4% Blue, for example.

03 activate the gamut warning

To discover which colours won’t print correctly, click the Destination Gamut Warning icon at the top right of the histogram window. Any unprintable colours will turn red. Here you can see that the darker blue pixels and some of the greens and yellows are out of gamut.

05 SELECTIVE Saturation adjustment

Click the Saturation section of the HSL panel. Select the Targeted Adjustment tool icon, click the sky’s red patch and drag downwards to desaturate the colour. The Blue slider will slide left and the patches will vanish. Sample and desaturate patches in the grass.

02 SEE a Proof Preview

To get an idea of how the photo will look when printed, click the Soft Proofing button. The white backdrop is the paper border around the print. The area below the histogram shows specific numerical values for each RGB colour channel, rather than a percentage.

04 create a Proof copy

You may want an online version of the image, as well as a version that’s suitable for print. Click Create Proof Copy. You’ll now have two versions of the photo in the Filmstrip. To desaturate the copy’s unprintable blues without changing the other colours, go to the HSL tab.

06 change the colour Profile

Alternatively, change the photo’s colour profile menu from the default SRGB to the print-friendly colour space of Adobe RGB (1998). This forces the Proof Preview’s colours to conform to a printable range without the need to make selective adjustments.