Question

P: Adaptive Profiles

Forum|Forum|1 year ago
February 7, 2025
88 replies
39165 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

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B

bast0425

Participant

I’m very happy with these Adaptive Profiles. Since using them, I no longer have issues with the color rendering of my Sony camera, which I previously found disappointing. Before, achieving the desired image quality required extensive photo development work, unlike the more pleasing color science of Canon mirrorless cameras. These new profiles have truly made my editing workflow much easier, and the results are fantastic. Thank you, Adobe, for addressing this challenge and making color grading so much simpler!

E

Edward Eastman

Inspiring

I'm creating a B&W editing course using LrC. I really like how the Adaptive B&W Profile renders a B&W image. It reduces the amount of initial global editing an image requires. I can then go right to local edits using Masking tools.

Frank_Hirschhausen

Participant

On some Files it works quite good. Even on Portraits Details get carved out that havent been noticed before. Depends on a good Lighting. Its a start...
Only disadvantage is, that Presets dont work anymore the Way they did. Colourgrading and Curve need to be re-invented instead of using a Profile. Anyway, a beatiful new Tool in the Box

M

Mathias_DK_

Participating Frequently

I am going through a batch of travel photos (landscapes, cityscapes, panos), and I am using the new Adaptive Color on most of them. It is a new workflow, but it is easily 'adaptable' 😉 I find it is great for a starting point (was using Adobe Color Auto a lot before) - and with just a few fixes to contrast and saturation, most photos are good to go. Great time saver, and punchy look to the files. I would ofcourse not use it on portraits or for reproductions. But for most other things, I do like it so far. I do get the 'Shadow' artifact on some images (notably in panoramas), as described in another post here. Makes it unusable on some images.

M

Mathias_DK_

Participating Frequently

I decided to go full HDR on these travel photos instead of just using Adaptive Profile. It's a first for me editing in HDR, and while the difference does look amazing on my HDR monitor (now I want a better one - any suggestions on PC?), sharing these files with the world becomes a problem. However, I do love how I can shape those last bits in the highlights of even the SDR versions. And Adaptive Profile gives me pretty good microcontrast and histogram as a starting point. From there, I basically just need to control the highlights, contrast and saturation - for the files that can handle it. Any way to 'auto adapt' to my monitor profile (my monitors DR I mean)? Here's the photos - in SDR - https://www.flickr.com/photos/mvejerslev/albums/72177720323999176

M

Mathias_DK_

Participating Frequently

And here's some potential problem images:

https://www.flickr.com/photos/mvejerslev/54342639007/in/album-72177720323999176/ - The seagull, potentially identified as 'the subject' has got a shadow around it. Potentially lit too much, green cast in the shadows.

https://www.flickr.com/photos/mvejerslev/54342639132/in/album-72177720323999176/ - bit too HDR, too little midtone contrast, halos around mountains.

https://www.flickr.com/photos/mvejerslev/54343744679/in/album-72177720323999176/ - foreground lit too much, halos around the trees, sky behind the trees are lighter.

https://www.flickr.com/photos/mvejerslev/54343532751/in/album-72177720323999176/ - too HDR, foreground lit too much.

https://www.flickr.com/photos/mvejerslev/54343743309/in/album-72177720323999176/ - shadow around the building

Etc.

In general, I think it did well on these, sometimes difficult, travel images. I also think there are some obvious misses in there. And theres the issue of the 'shadow bug' mentioned. Note I adjusted the highlights manually in HDR on all of these photos.

I also think its great to have a 'lazy option' like an AI Adaptive Profile - it is the 'look' were all getting accustomed to anyway, from AI smartphone photography. However, I think there's often way too much 'haloing' going on.

M

Marius Gerome

Participant

Is this sort of an improvement to "automatic adjustments" or is it actually a profile thats applied with the same values everywhere? It looks good! Quite different than the camera standard profile, but damn good! Especially in situations when theres no camera profile – like in smartphone "raw" (dng or heic) photos. Really nice!! I just want to know; how? What am I working with? How is it doing the calculation: always with the same values and principles (so you've crafted an universal picture profile) or always based on the image (like what smartphones do when they process a photo).

J

jrsforums

Inspiring

https://blog.adobe.com/en/publish/2024/10/14/the-adobe-adaptive-profile

M

MarkdenHartog10483386

Participant

I am doing product photography, and for this, it is unusable. It becomes contrasty in areas I don't want it to, and it dims displays way too dark

ACEkin

Participating Frequently

For my sensibilities, there is far too much emphasis on midtones. But, it seems to go with the current trend of making everything visible even at the expense of the mood.

C

ChrisBR

Participant

The color version seems to work well for many different scenarios. Not sure about the B&W version - maybe contrast is too light. Have to use it more to get a better handle on it. Thanks for including these two in LR!

T

Tijazap

Participating Frequently

Thanks Rikk for a great intro to what I'm seeing as a very valuable tool. I was wondering about your advice and wanted to make sure I understood it. You stated:

Always start from the Adobe Default or Camera Default rendering (with no other edits) and enable the Adaptive Profile first.

By "rendering" do you mean color Profiles? I have a set of 7 Adobe Raw profiles and set of 6 Camera Matching profiles. None of those have a Default. Can you please clarify?

Patrick Maes

Participating Frequently

It doesn't matter which profile you chose because you'll be changing it anyway with an Adaptive Profile. All sliders (light, curve, color mixer, etc.) should be set to 0 (the default). Make edits and local adjustments after you've chosen the Adaptive Profile.

T

Thijs_Photo

Participant

Got quite a few good results but also some weird artifacts.

Adobe color (exposure adjusted):

Adaptive color (SDR):

The same dark "shadows" do NOT appear in Adaptive color (HDR).

Is this a know problem?

-TS.

C

ccullen22

Known Participant

Hi. Interesting update. The adaptive profile for landscape photography tends to be rather aggressive. Also if I do as reccommended as use Adaptive Color profile from an unedited shot, then edit to my satisfaction, then save a 'Snapshot' in Develop mode, if I go back to that Snapshot later is COMPLETELY different - otfen a whole stop too dark. Happens repeatly

C

ccullen22

Known Participant

further point. If I start with an untouched RAW file. Store a Snapshot of it unedited, then change to Adaptive Color profile, do not edit at all but just store another Snapshot. If I the toggle back to the original Snapshot and then back again to the Adaptive one, the Adaptive one looks different from what it was when I stored it

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