P: Auto Settings-Vibrance

Report · Apr 30, 2024

When using "Auto" tone in LRC, it seems to always set Vibrance to exactly +15. This is a bad behavior. I think that when we hit the Auto button, the software should be looking at the image and making suggested adjustments, specifically for that image. The fact that Vibrance ALWAYS goes to +15 shows that this is just a random preset that is not necessarily based on the image. If you put an overly saturated image in to LRC and hit Auto, it will become even more saturated. That's terrible. When LRC looks at Exposure, for instance, it will brighten or darken as it sees fit, depending on the image. But Vibrance is NOT being evaluated and therefore should not be adjusted. Or it would be nice if we could set some sort of defaults when auto is used.

Report · Apr 30, 2024

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I tested 57 pseudo-randomly selected photos from my test catalog, from 16 camera models, and though +15 was the most common value for Vibrance (21 photos), 36 of the photos had different values ranging from 8 to 20:

If you want to apply Auto Settings but always set Vibrance back to zero, you could use this develop preset:

https://www.dropbox.com/scl/fi/0ra4r1q0y4u3k8r4hijkb/Auto-Settings.-Vibrance-0.xmp?rlkey=74862h5xkem...

LR won't let you choose both Auto Settings and any slider affected by Auto Settings when you're creating a preset, but you can manually edit the .xmp's settings afterward (which I did). It usually works when applying the preset in Develop to a single photo, though it may not work when applying to a batch of photos (which is why LR won't let you make such a preset).

If you want more flexibility dialing back Vibrance or other settings after using Auto Tone, see the Personalized Auto Tone plugin.

But beware that this plugin always applies Auto Settings in batch mode to the selected photos, and batch-mode Auto Tone sometimes chooses significantly different settings than apply Auto Settings to a single photo in Develop:

https://community.adobe.com/t5/lightroom-classic-ideas/p-option-to-batch-apply-auto-settings-with-fu...