Sponge/Desaturate Tool Not Desaturating 100%

[Burke2818317494k3]

Hi all - 

Apologies if this is a stupid question, but I'm using the sponge tool to desaturate part of an image. My intention is for the area I'm desaturating to be 100% desaturated/grayscale. Using a brush with 100% hardness, desaturate mode, 100% flow, Vibrance checked, it's still not desaturating completely. I have to go over it 2 or 3 times. Any idea why? (Side note - I am able to use a Saturation Adjustment Layer with a black paintbrush, and it will desaturate completely, but that's not the ideal workflow for my purposes.) (Also, if needed, running Photoshop 25.12.0 on Mac OS 14.6.1.)

[D Fosse]

Not at my machine to test this, but what happens if you uncheck Vibrance? Vibrance is a special type of saturation adjustment that uses an S-curve instead of a linear/flat adjustment.

This way it affects the middle range of each channel more than highs or lows - in other words; it avoids clipping when increasing saturation, but when desaturating it attacks low saturation more than high saturation.

[Burke2818317494k3]

Unfortunately, still requires a second or third pass with Vibrance unchecked. I do appreciate the explanation of what the Vibrance specifically affects, though. I wondered why that had its own preference checkbox.

[jane-e]

@Burke2818317494k3 

In addition to what DFosse suggested, when a tool does not behave as you expect, the first thing to try is to reset the tool. Right click the Sponge tool in the options bar (not Tools panel) and choose Reset tool. The options bar may show that you have an opacity set, for instance.

Jane

[Burke2818317494k3]

Unfortunately, it still only desaturates about 50%. Maybe my expectation of this tool is the issue. It's looking like a Saturation layer is going to be my best option. 😕

[Jeff Arola]

You could use the Brush Tool with the Mode set to Saturation and the Foreground Color set to Black

[Burke2818317494k3]

I feel pretty silly for not thinking of this as an alternative solution! I still wish the Sponge tool worked as expected, but this is definitely a good option!