P: (Early Access) Color Variance (Camera Raw)

[Rikk Flohr: Photography]

This post applies only to Camera Raw. 

Announcing Early Access to 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

Posted by:

[bruce_1725]

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.

[Carlos_Oliveras]

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!

[Kajrov]

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

[Ken Curtis]

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

[Kourosh5E9C]

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

[Dominique1674]

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?

[uriel_5583]

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!! 

[Andrei Lupu]

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! 

[John MacLean]

I love it. Hoping it comes to LrC too! Thanks!

[John MacLean]

I was really hoping to see this again today in the LrC update 14.5.1 😞

[superernesto]

I would find it useful if we could drag a window when sampling a color, so it would select the average color in that area. I guess the selecting tool is already doing some averaging with the neighbors, but an explicit window could be more useful in certain situations. Moreover, this wouldn't require adding or changing anything in the current interface or workflow, so no complexity would be added to the process, and the current behavior would still be available just by clicking without dragging.

Another feature that could be useful when creating presets would be to be able to modify existing samples. For instance, I usually apply the same treatment to grass greens, so I can include a sample color in a preset. But then, in different photos, maybe I want to correct the specific sampled tone, but keep the rest of the adjustments to be applied on that sample.

Anyway, I know this feedback is more related to point sampling in general rather than to the variance slider, but just in case it helps.

[EltonBrownePhotography]

This is a super tool to have.
Just edited a photo to remove the unwanted flash glare on a person's face.

[1Drewcifer1]

Amazing , love it!

[dieselmedia]

A very nice addition for landscape images. I just used it on some wedding photos shot in Hood River, Oregon, on the river, and the before-and-after shots showcased the capability of emphasizing the colors of the mountains leading down to the Columbia.

[John MacLean]

I only see one image. Was there supposed to be another for a comparison?

[ianwhiting]

Very useful for reducing the red blotches of skin

[Andrei Lupu]

Unfortunately this tool became useless. After the last updates it crashes a lot, I used to edit full weddings in it, not in LR. The lack of professionalism from the Adobe who released updates for this product not as Beta, but as regular updates, even the software does not work, I choosed to move to Capture One. And in that way I found that Adobe softwares destroyed colors from my Canon R5 and R3 cameras. C1 renders a lot better the colors, and the ”Speed edit” based on shortcuts and layers is a big thing for people who have a lot of pictures to edit. The downfall of Adobe began when the platform restricted by software the VSCO camera profiles, just like Adobe desired for photographers to have weaker results. 

[sb2314]

Extremely helpful in toning down/up, especially in targeted skin tones. Please add this feature to Lightroom so that users can save time by not having to switch back and forth between Lightroom and Photoshop.

[Sara..N]

Thank you, thank you, thank you! I've needed this for so long. I just used it this morning to remove unwanted small patches of color cast and it's worked flawlessly!

[Nexus 6]

Please keep it. I've been using since the released and its a fantastic function. I get back to lots of pack soots I've made in the past and Woow , yes super useful
Keep the fantastic work and keep the function

[Jean-Paul30793279qndp]

En français, l'onglet "saturation" et appelé "SAM", je suppose que cela devrait être SAT

[Ladev]

I love this. Cheaper flashes are inconsistant in colors and to be able to homogenise a piece of fabric is incredible. No more Masks, Gradient maps etc. 

[Breck Jones]

When will this feature come to Lightroom....  I caint wait!

[kents72233252]

This tool works great - makes it so much more easy to make color contrast.