Advanced colour edits

The LCH submenu contains some very powerful colourediting features. Neil Freeman explains how to use them

- Neil Freeman

The LCH (Lightness, Chroma and Hue) tool gives us the ability to control specific aspects of the colors in images. The Lightness tool changes the brightness of a colour, the Hue alters the shade of a colour and Chroma controls the depth of the colour.

These tools can be found under the Adjustments tab, then under the LCH submenu. Like most menus in NX Studio, you have a dropdown option that displays Original Value (this is the setting used for NEF files imported from most cameras) and gives you the option to Record Adjustments or Edit Recorded Adjustments, enabling you to create a ‘profile’ for a specific camera that you can apply to images in the future.

When you have chosen the image you wish to edit, go to the second submenu and select either Colour Lightness, Master Lightness, Hue or Chroma. On the color grid, click on the colour you wish to alter and drag the line up or down, depending on how you wish to change the color. Repeat this process if you want to alter another colour as well. Use the Width slider to control how many adjacent colours the changes will affect; this gives you pinpoint control over the range of colours altered in the image. You also have an eyedropper tool if you want to select an exact colour from the main image window.

The two square boxes are for resetting either the current colour channel or all of the colour channels. If you are using the Hue menu, you also have the option for choosing a 60, 120 or 180-degree shift in the colour choices.