P: Adaptive Profiles

[Rikk Flohr: Photography]

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 :

[tom_4528]

It's a handly tool and a nice starting point for outdoor scenes, but not so great for portraits and indoors in low light.  One thing I noticed is how it affects the White setting, as in what happens when you press "Shift" and then click on the slider.  In another profile, that usually adds (or removes) a small amount of White.  But when you start with Adaptive Profiles, it has a tendency to push the White so far to the right it basically blows out the photo.  So, I'm still playing with workflow.
(I've seen a few YouTuber's delare this as the "end of presets", but that's premature hyperbole)