Lightroom 3 color correction

[carlyfan]

So I recently installed the free trial for Lightroom 3 and finally got it working on our slow computer that has windows on it. But I can't figure out the color correction controls. I'm so used to GIMP where there are three sliders:
Cyan --- Red
Magenta ---- Green
Yellow --- Blue
Lightroom seems to have only two.
Blue --- Yellow
Green --- Magenta
Am I missing something? Are the other controls somewhere else? Or is that really all I get? I'm getting a little frustrated because red was one of the colors I used the most, and when I add magenta it gets too purpley. Does anyone else have this problem?

Thanks
Lisa

[IABoomer]

In the "Basic" tab, you have two sliders for white balancing, labeled "Temp" and "Tint". I believe this is what you're describing.

If you look two items down, you should see a tab labeled "HSL/Color/B&W". In that tab, you can adjust the hue, saturation, and lightness of individual colors.

[carlyfan]

But doesn't that just control the parts of the picture that are a certain color? I want to adjust the white balance of the whole picture. Often my pictures need to be more red. Sorry if I didn't make that clear.

Thanks for the reply though.
Lisa

[ElCapitan]

Originally Posted by carlyfan

But doesn't that just control the parts of the picture that are a certain color? I want to adjust the white balance of the whole picture. Often my pictures need to be more red. Sorry if I didn't make that clear.

Thanks for the reply though.
Lisa

Very true. This is one thing that LR3 is lacking in, and if LR3 was the only photo editing software I was using, it would be a big problem. If you have any version of PS (as far as I know), you can create a Color Balance layer which has all 3 tabs which you are referring to. I know Adobe Camera RAW has only the 2 for white balance, and it seems to me that LR3 is a glorified Camera RAW editor. So as far as setting the WB to your RAW images, both do a great job, but may still require a bit of color balance in PS.

[sk66]

yes, it is limited for manual WB adjustment IMO. You can use the eye dropper to select a "middle grey" and set WB that way.
A trick to "create" a middle gray where there isn't one is to use the adobe presets...Convert the image to B/W using the B/W low contrast preset, then set the WB with the eyedropper, then convert it back to color using the general zeroed preset.

[ravncat]

IIRC You can also use the profiling sliders to adjust overall color casts further - they`re in the bottom most tab. I find it easier to circumvent this by building profiles with the X-rite colorchecker passport and software

[ravncat]

AHA - I just realized something about your post... but it turned out to be a mis-remembering. I thought i'd quickly run down all the main color controls in LR - because my last post probably wasn't too helpful.

There's Four places you should be looking at for working with color in lightroom
(Note, im referring to lightroom 3, but im pretty sure they all exist in older versions)

1. White balance.
This is located in the Basic panel, that people have talked above - Temp and Tint - going from blue to yellow and cyan to magenta. Because Magenta is negative green and cyan is negative red - you have access to the whole range of hues. (using them in combination) This adjusts white balance for the entire image.

2. HSL / Color
This is located in the HSL/Color/B&W tab, that people have also talked about above. This lets you affect individual colors and tones.

3. Chromatic Abberation adjustment
This is located in the Lens Corrections tab, and allows you to adjust
Red/Cyan and Blue/Yellow - but this works on a very subtle shift in position of those colors to get rid of abberations. (For a moment, I thought that is what two colors you were referring to.

4. Shadow Tint, and RGB hue adjustments
This is located in the Camera Calibration tab, and allows you to either Tweak the image, or more importantly calibrate your camera. (Generally lens + Sensor combinations of different cameras lead to different color responses - usually subtle, sometimes not) There is a profile choice here, that is either an adobe preset or tries to duplicate the effects of using the camera's jpg engine. The method for changing from the raw file to a 3 layered color file depends on secrets the camera companies aren't divulging.

one can use the profile as a starting point and then the tint and hue adjustments for fine color correction to the whole image. You can then make presets that work well for camera/lens combinations. It's also possible to buy a physical color target to shoot - then use software to create your own starting profile - this method will let you get consistant colors across multiple cameras and lenses. (I mentioned the X-rite target above)

One can also use these for global adjustments of image tone by the channels - which allows another method of color correction by shifting the RGB hues and saturations.

[sk66]

All four exist in the develop module and it adds the WB eyedropper which is not in the library module.
I generally don't do any editing in the library module.

[carlyfan]

Thank you so much ElCapitan, sk66, and ravncat! I'm glad I'm not the only one who thinks two controls are not sufficient. I'll check out those other methods and the eye dropper too when I have some time. Thanks for explaining your previous post ravncat. I would have been lost without it.

Thanks again!
Lisa

[ElCapitan]

Originally Posted by carlyfan

Thank you so much ElCapitan, sk66, and ravncat! I'm glad I'm not the only one who thinks two controls are not sufficient. I'll check out those other methods and the eye dropper too when I have some time. Thanks for explaining your previous post ravncat. I would have been lost without it.

Thanks again!
Lisa

If LR is all you use, then it could be an issue, but if you have PS, making a color balance layer is all you need. Although I do a majority of my work in PS (I only edit RAW in LR), there are times where the only thing I need to do in PS is color balance, and it would be nice to just stay in LR. I to need to mess around with camera calibration in those instances.