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Rikk Flohr_Photography
Community Manager
Rikk Flohr_PhotographyCommunity Manager
Community Manager
February 7, 2025
Question

P: Adaptive Profiles

  • February 7, 2025
  • 84 replies
  • 38252 views

This post applies to Lightroom Classic and Lightroom Desktop.  
Feedback for Camera Raw should be posted here.

 

Update February 2025:

Adobe has introduced two Adaptive Profiles – Adaptive Color & Adaptive B&W.

 

Getting started with the Adaptive Profiles: 

  • Access a profile inside the profile favorites menu. 
  • In addition, there is a new section for Adaptive Profiles in the Profiles browser. 
  • Enable the profile and adjust the ‘Amount’ slider as desired. 
  • Use the rest of the Camera Raw tools just like you would otherwise. 


Check out the Help Page for more detailed usage information. For more technical information on the underlying technology, please refer to this blog post. 

 

Please try the profiles and share feedback in this community forum thread. It would help to include details like how you access Camera Raw (via Adobe Bridge or Photoshop), your computer system details, and as much information as possible about what you like or do not like about the resulting image quality. Our team will continually monitor this thread to track issues and improve the future experience. 

 

Best practices for using the Adaptive Profiles:
 

Try the new profile in the following scenarios: 

  • For food scenes. 
  • In situations where simply moving Tone and Color sliders may not be sufficient, such as for: high-contrast scenes, landscape or cityscape scenes with skies. 
  • For High-Dynamic-Range (HDR) photography, simply select Adaptive Color or Adaptive B&W as a profile and click on the ‘HDR’ button. 

    Note: Adaptive Profiles generate HDR and Standard Dynamic Range (SDR) data jointly, creating photos that look consistent with one another. In other words, after applying either of these profiles, if you toggle the HDR button on or off, you will see either the adaptive HDR or SDR look, depending on the position of the toggle.  


To maximize the value of using Adaptive Profiles, please follow these steps: 

  • Always start from the Adobe Default or Camera Default rendering (with no other edits) and enable the Adaptive Profile first. 
  • Reset any other settings before applying the profile. 
  • Make additional global and local edits after assigning the profile, just as you would begin to edit photos with Adobe Color or any other profile. 


Boris Ajdin: Product Manager, Emerging Products Group 


Posted by :

    84 replies

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    N
    nathank58160098
    Participant
    July 20, 2025

    Shot photos on a ferry boat (day after my sister's wedding lunch cruise) during daytime with bright overcast skies. The lighting in the boat was dim, especially versus the outside glare. I had to expose in between to avoid blowing things out, the adaptive color has been great at restoring the view out the boat while allowing for proper exposure of subjects inside. These photos are much better for it!

      T
      Taurus on Adobe
      Participant
      July 19, 2025

      The Adaptive Profile for RAF files in LRC seems to bring out the shadows very well. Conversly, it faults on the side of too much exposure and I almost always have to dial it back. Many times I check to see what it will do and then reset to the original as a starting point.

      B
      Adobe Employee
      BorisTheBlade
      Adobe Employee
      August 28, 2025
      quote

      The Adaptive Profile for RAF files in LRC seems to bring out the shadows very well. Conversly, it faults on the side of too much exposure and I almost always have to dial it back. Many times I check to see what it will do and then reset to the original as a starting point.


      By @Taurus on Adobe

      Hello - would you be able to share some example files which exhibit this behavior so we can analyze them and see how we can improve? Thanks.

      C
      CaroleSD
      Participating Frequently
      July 1, 2025

      Apdaptive seems to give a new base and balance of colors.   I look at it as artistic preference.  

        Dal_s_Photography
        Dal_s_Photography
        Participating Frequently
        June 25, 2025

        Just used the "adaptative color" for a photo I could have deleted, it was rescued! Later, Denoise, an blur, came to finish the rescue. I loved that I could do this with a Fujifilm RAF file! 

          B
          BBuzan549
          Inspiring
          June 20, 2025

          At first, I didn't like the adaptive color profile. It was oversaturated and didn't look good. However, I later found that if I cropped and adjusted the white balance first, I had better luck with it as a starting point.

          T
          thomas5CED
          Inspiring
          June 21, 2025

          I don't think the crop or white balance influences the adaptive color profile. I did a quick test and it doesn't matter whether you crop first and then apply the adaptive profile or the other way around. Are you referring to the "Auto" button by any chance?

          C
          Cory Hammond
          Participant
          June 20, 2025

          It works reasonably well as a starting point in most cases (thus saving time) but utterly fails in some situations. I don't have a good feel for when it will and won't work yet. It does consistently under-expose and over-saturate and there is a tendency for over-doing the HDR look (great to have the slider to reduce the effect).

          K
          Kev_Tbay
          Participant
          June 19, 2025

          Has there been an upgrade to the Adaptive profile settings in Lightroom? It was much "better" before the previous update. Now it does very little to an image. It definitely has changed becuase when I go back to a previos image it shows that it has used "Adaptive Color v1". Has anyone elese noticed this change? Can't find any discussion of it online. 

          B
          Adobe Employee
          BorisTheBlade
          Adobe Employee
          June 20, 2025

          Hello - thank you for reaching out to the team. Would you be able to share with us an example file you are seeing this behavior on, along with all the settings, so we can verify on our end?

          J
          JerryBEsq
          Participating Frequently
          June 16, 2025

          Great addition. Does a very good job.

           Now, you need to change the color of the adjustment sliders for all masks so that there is no confusion with the global sliders.

          T
          thomas5CED
          Inspiring
          June 15, 2025

          +1 to the previous comment. I also noticed that the adaptive color profile just shifts green and partially blue tones too much. I mostly do landscape shots with a lot of vegetation. The luminosity adjustments done by adaptive color are usually pretty good, but the images end up with a green and slightly blue tint to them. 

          J
          Jim 185
          Inspiring
          June 14, 2025

          I use the adaptive poreset maybe 25% of the time. The main issue I find is that they intensify greens too much. They can also lighten the background when I was purposefully keeping it dark.

           

          But there are times it hits the mark !!

          C
          Cory Hammond
          Participant
          June 20, 2025

          Have noticed the same with greens in particular, requiring desaturation or reducing vibrance

           

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