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Rikk Flohr_Photography
Community Manager
Community Manager
April 29, 2025
Question

P: Color Variance (Camera Raw)

  • April 29, 2025
  • 28 replies
  • 74044 views

This post applies only to Camera Raw. 

Announcing a new feature in Adobe Camera Raw (17.4) – Color Variance

 

There is now a Variance slider in the Point Color edit controls, in both global Point Color and masking Point Color.

 

Like the Point Color Hue, Saturation, and Luminance sliders, Variance works on the colors in the range of the current sample. Reducing Variance pulls colors in the range toward the sampled color; increasing Variance pushes colors in the range away from the sampled color. Variance pays attention to the HSL edits you've made to the sample; it's pushing away from or pulling toward the "after" color - the right side of the color bar above the sliders. You can make the slider adjustments in any order (HSL edits first or Variance edits first), and the results will be the same.

 

Reducing Variance is useful for evening out skin tones: sample an area of the skin that looks like you want it to, and then reduce the variance to pull the colors in the sample closer to the sample color. This will easily reduce redness in cheeks, noses, ears, etc., and help tame unwanted color casts. If there is no area of the skin that looks quite right, you can make adjustments to the sampled color using the Point Color HSL edit sliders.

 

Moving the Variance slider to the right increases the variance of the colors in the range of the current sample. This is useful to bring out subtle color contrasts in landscapes, cityscapes, etc.

 

We would love to hear your feedback on Variance! Please give it a try and let us know what you think: How is it useful? How could it be more useful? What could we do to improve your experience?

 

Thank you!


The Adobe Camera Raw Team


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28 replies

Participant
June 23, 2025

Unfortunately the new version has issues, it keeps shooting down at multiple pictures imported. This was not a problem before. But the new ”Variance” looks to be very useful! 

Participant
June 22, 2025

Absolutely love this feature!! It would be amazing if this tool was added to the HSL Adjustment Layer as well as bringing it to Lightroom as well!! This really helps add a diverse mix of colors to an otherwise monochrome image!! A dream tool for Color Grading!! 

Participant
June 22, 2025

It would be so much simpler and more useful if we could measure colors in HSL... Just knowing that a sky varies between 212° and 218° is enough to balance a whole series of snow photos, much better than measuring "white" in RGB. Why can't we choose HSL measurement in Camera Raw? Isn't it possible?

Participant
June 22, 2025

I use to use this future in ACR for long time. it is great impromement.

Inspiring
June 21, 2025

I like having the variance slider because I can make subtle coloring changes. Keep it, please.

Inspiring
June 21, 2025

Very useful featuere, special then you use a photoscanner as Plustek

 

Known Participant
June 20, 2025

This is a fantastic addition - I’ve just made a video on my YouTube channel covering the new ACR features, and to me, this is by far the most exciting one.

That said, I’d love to see the Variance control evolve to allow independent adjustment of hue, saturation, and lightness variance, instead of treating all three dimensions as a single compound. This would bring even more precision, especially in use cases like skin tone unification (preserving luminance variation) or landscape enhancement (preserving hue while adjusting saturation variance, for instance).

Really hope this makes its way into Lightroom as well. Thanks for the continued innovation — it’s much appreciated!

Participant
June 19, 2025

I just saw Glyn Dewis' video on this new feature. Very powerful tool. Anxious to see other videos using this new tool so that I can use it as effectively as possible without going overboard with it.