How to Green-Up Grass in Lightroom

How to Make Grass Greener in Lightroom

The HSL Panel in Lightroom doesn't get talked about or used very often - especially the Hue section of HSL Panel.  Usually moving the sliders in the Hue Panel can create some interesting color shifts that are unnatural and crazy.

But this tool also has some amazing super powers when it comes to subtly changing the color of the grass and sky to better fit the vision for your photograph.

When You Might Need to Green-Up the Grass

There are two times when you may want to help the color of the grass.

• The first is anytime you are photographing during full sun and a summer day.  Bright sun on a summer day will make the grass look yellow by over-exposing it.

• Another time you might want to adjust the color of the grass is when you are photographing during early spring or fall when the grass tends to look yellow or dead.

Watch this video or follow the steps below to learn how to:

1. Green-up dead or yellow grass to a more healthy shade of green.

2. Change over-exposed midday sun grass to be a prettier shade of green!

How to Green-Up Dead or Yellow Grass

Use the following steps to learn how to green-up dead or yellow grass in your photos.

Step 1: Locate the Hue Panel

The Hue Panel is located within the HSL Panel and found directly under the Tone Curve Panel.  HSL stands for Hue, Saturation, and Luminance.  When you open the HSL Panel, it will look something like this:

You will see the words Hue, Saturation, and Luminance across the top of the panel.  The sliders will look slightly different depending on which one of those words you click on.  If you click on All, you will be able to see all three panels in order, on top of each other.

We will only be using the Hue Panel today, so go ahead and click on that panel to open the sliders there.

Step 2: Adjust the Hue with the Targeted Adjustment Tool

The Targeted Adjustment Tool is an amazing tool that is often overlooked in Lightroom.  It has the ability to "target" specific colors and tones in your image and apply changes to ONLY those specific colors and tones, which makes this the perfect tool for adjusting the color of grass.

When you click on the targeted adjustment tool, you will know its active because two small arrows will appear above and below the small circle.  Once the tool is active you can move over to your image, then click and drag up or down on specific areas to adjust the hue of the colors you are clicking on.

• Clicking and dragging upward will cause the sliders affecting the colors you are clicking on to move towards the right.

• Clicking and dragging downward will cause the sliders affecting the colors you are clicking on to move towards the left.

To change the grass from yellow to green, you will want to move your cursor over a patch of grass and then click and drag upward.  You will see the grass start to change from a yellow color to a more green color.  The change will be subtle but obvious.

Step 3: Apply These Same Tips to Your Sky

You might find opportunities to apply these same tips to the skies in your photos.  If you want to adjust the blue color of your sky to be more purple or aqua, you can do that by using the same HSL panel and targeted adjustment tool to adjust the color of your sky. 

Hopefully these tips help you improve your editing skills and get the most out of Lightroom!

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