Adobe Photoshop

Lesson D: Vibrance & Hue/Saturation

There are several adjustments that affect the saturation of an image, and in this lesson we’ll discuss two. As always in this book, you’ll learn the foundations and rationale here and then you can deepen your knowledge in the Compendium. For this lesson, the good parts to reference are “Vibrance” (page 237) and “Hue/Saturation” (page 238).

Definition of Saturation

Picture the light from a laser. No matter what color it is, it’s impressively intense and vibrant—in fact, its color is purely of one wavelength. That would be the ultimate saturated color. The color of an old incandescent bulb is smeared out a bit around various yellows, reds, and oranges. Since it’s not as pure a hue as the laser, we’d say it’s ...