Basic Correction

Basic Correction is where most grades start: making the image look right before making it look like anything in particular.

This photo only

When you have several photos open, a This photo only group appears at the top of the panel, with its own Exposure, Temperature and Tint. It changes the photo on the canvas and no other. Everything else in the editor is the look, shared by every open photo.

Use it first: get each photo to a similar brightness and a neutral white balance, then build the look. These three values are saved with an exported image, but they are not part of an exported LUT, because the LUT is the look and the correction was for that one photo.

White Balance

• Temperature makes the image cooler (bluer) or warmer (more orange). Use it when white or grey things in the picture have a colour cast.
• Tint moves between green and magenta. Fluorescent and LED light often leave a green cast; Tint removes it.

A quick check: find something that should be neutral, like a white wall or a grey pavement, and move both until it looks neutral.

Tone

• Exposure brightens or darkens the whole image evenly.
• Contrast pushes darks darker and brights brighter, or flattens them together.
• Whites sets how bright the brightest parts get.
• Blacks sets how dark the darkest parts get. Raising it gives a softer, matte look; lowering it adds depth.

Watch the histogram in the left sidebar as you go. If it piles up against the right edge, highlights are clipping to pure white; against the left, shadows are crushing to pure black.

Saturation

Saturation makes every colour more or less intense. For a gentler boost that leaves already-strong colours and skin mostly alone, use Vibrance in the Creative panel instead.

A good order

1. White balance.
2. Exposure.
3. Contrast, then whites and blacks.
4. Saturation last, because contrast changes how saturated an image looks.