Make your first color grade

This walkthrough takes one photo from start to finish: open it, drop a color pin, move that color, refine the selection, compare against the original, and export. Follow the steps below with any photo, then use the sections underneath to check and save your result.

1. Open a photo. In the Library, double-click a photo to open the Editor. It starts on the Color tab, framed on the colors already in your image.

2. Drop a pin. Hover over the color you want to change — for example, the sky. A crosshair tracks that color's position on the wheel. Click to drop a pin there. Clicking the color directly on the wheel works the same way. For how to read the cloud of colors, see The color wheel.

3. Move it. Drag the pin toward the hue you want. Every matching pixel updates in real time, and a thin arrow marks where the color started and where you moved it. A readout by the arrow shows the hue and chroma shift (for example, -3° +0.03), and the row above the wheel lists the pin's full values — hue, chroma, lightness, and range.

4. Set its lightness. Drag the Lightness strip under the wheel to lift or deepen just that color. Double-click the strip to reset it.

5. Tune the selection. Scroll over the pin to widen the selection (gather in neighboring colors) or narrow it onto the one you meant. For finer control over what a pin catches, see Editing colors.

Check your work

Before you commit, hold B to flash the untouched original. With a pin selected, hold H to light up the pixels that pin is affecting — the quickest way to catch a selection reaching further than intended, like a sky pin that also pulls the blue in a jacket. H previews the selected pin, so click a pin first.

Export the result

When it looks right, switch to the Export persona at the top-left to render a full-resolution file. Your original is never touched — the grade is stored as an editable document you can reopen and rework any time. For formats, bit depth, and where files are written, see Exporting and supported files.