Legend

P: Adaptive Color profile artifacts

Forum|Forum|2 months ago
May 10, 2026
6 replies
82 views

In some photos, applying the Adaptive Color Profile produces weird, blotchy artifacts in brighter areas, particularly in a sky where there is strong contrast between the bright and dark areas, like a sunrise or sunset.

In the attached video, the photo in Develop begins with Adobe Color as the Profile, adjusting the Highlights slider brightens and darkens the sky as expected. Changing the Profile to Adaptive Color produces noticeable, blotchy artifacts in the sky. Adjusting the Highlights slider dramatically changes these blotchy artifacts. Adjusting the Profile Amount slider also changes these artifacts. Enabling HDR mode makes these blotches disappear; adjusting the Highlights moves a prominent bright band up and down in the sky, but the blotches do not appear.

I reported this in another photo a year ago, but the problem remains. It means that for some photos, Adaptive Color is quite useless.

Has anyone else seen this problem when using the Adaptive Color Profile?

Lightroom_sUUSOgmrHI.mp4

Sameer K

Community Manager

Hey, all. Thanks for bringing this up. I've moved this thread to Camera Raw since there is an existing investigation that will fix the issue across all Lightroom surfaces. I've shared this thread and the examples included here with the team.

Thanks!
Sameer K
(Type '@' and type my name to mention me when you reply)

D

drtonybAuthor

Legend

This is a problem for the ACR team and high time that it was given some proper attention.

@Steviem101 has provided me with four examples of this problem, so it’s not an isolated instance; it’s a real failure of the Adaptive Color profile that needs thorough investigation and fixing.

S

Steviem101

Participant

I am getting the exact same problem as @drtonyb where the bright plain sky is being modified to add strange and obvious blotchy artifacts. It is immediately noticeable in the image the instance Adaptive Color Profile is selected, varying the Highlights slider changes the opacity and shapes of these artifacts…..it sure looks like it is a LRc Adaptive color profile issue. It seems to be where the contrast in the photo is very high. I have attached a screen video capture to demonstrate the issue

LRc Adaptive Color artifacts problem bug.mp4

J

jrsforums

Inspiring

Just to be sure….are you applying Adaptive Color with the basic sliders set at zero. I ask because your description seems to say you applied the highlight slider, then Adaptive Color. I have found that using Adaptive Color after having made other basic adjustments gives wonky results

D

drtonybAuthor

Legend

@jrsforums

Watch the video. No edits to start with. The Profile set to Adobe Color; Adjust the Highlights; changes in the photo are normal. Undo. Back to zero edits, apply Adaptive Color; artifacts in the sky appear; adjusting Highlights changes these artifacts; adjusting the Profile Amount changes these artifacts.

J

Jao vdL

Community Expert

Nasty artifacts indeed! I tried with a few similar images but can’t seem to recreate the issue. Might be related to the mask generation in the adaptive profiles going off the rails somehow in some very specific circumstances.

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