To change Hue and Saturation in Adobe Premiere Pro, you primarily use the powerful Lumetri Color panel, which offers both global and targeted adjustments. This allows you to fine-tune the overall look of your footage or isolate specific colors for precise manipulation.
How to Change Hue and Saturation in Adobe Premiere Pro
Adobe Premiere Pro provides various tools within the Lumetri Color panel to adjust the hue and saturation of your video footage. Whether you need a subtle global tweak or a precise change to a specific color range, the Lumetri Color panel is your go-to solution.
Accessing the Lumetri Color Panel
Before making any adjustments, ensure your project is open in Adobe Premiere Pro and you can see the Lumetri Color panel.
- Open Premiere Pro and load your project.
- Navigate to the Color workspace by going to
Window > Workspaces > Color. This will typically open the Lumetri Color panel and the Scopes panel. - Select the video clip in your timeline that you wish to modify.
Global Hue and Saturation Adjustments
For overall changes to your footage, you can use the Basic Correction and Creative sections of the Lumetri Color panel.
1. Basic Correction
The Basic Correction section offers a straightforward way to adjust the overall saturation.
- Scroll down to the Basic Correction section within the Lumetri Color panel.
- Locate the Saturation slider.
- Drag the slider to the left to decrease the overall color intensity (desaturate) or to the right to increase it (saturate).
2. Creative Look
The Creative section provides additional options for saturation, along with vibrance, which intelligently saturates less-saturated colors without over-saturating already vibrant ones.
- Expand the Creative section in the Lumetri Color panel.
- Vibrance: Adjust this slider to subtly enhance colors, especially skin tones, without making them look unnatural.
- Saturation: Similar to the Basic Correction slider, this adjusts the overall color intensity, but often used in conjunction with a 'Look' applied.
Targeted Hue and Saturation Adjustments (HSL Secondary)
For precise control over specific color ranges, the HSL Secondary section is invaluable. This allows you to select a particular color and then adjust only its hue, saturation, and luminance.
Here's how to make targeted adjustments:
- Navigate to HSL Secondary: In the Lumetri Color panel, scroll down and expand the HSL Secondary section.
- Select Your Target Color:
- Use the eyedropper tool next to "Key" (the single eyedropper) to click directly on the color you want to adjust in your program monitor.
- For a broader selection, use the "+" eyedropper to add more shades of that color, or the "-" eyedropper to remove unwanted shades.
- Refine Your Selection (Key):
- Activate the Color/Gray checkbox (located above the H/S/L sliders) to display your selection in color against a gray background. This helps you visualize exactly what's selected.
- Adjust the H (Hue), S (Saturation), and L (Luminance) sliders to precisely select the pixels that make up your target color.
- H (Hue): Narrows or broadens the specific color range.
- S (Saturation): Includes or excludes pixels based on their saturation level.
- L (Luminance): Includes or excludes pixels based on their brightness.
- Use the Denoise and Blur sliders below the H/S/L controls to achieve a more accurate and natural-looking selection, especially at the edges of your selected color. Denoise cleans up noisy key selections, while Blur softens the edges for a smoother blend.
- Apply Adjustments:
- Once your selection is refined, uncheck the Color/Gray checkbox.
- In the Correction section (below the HSL Key controls), you'll find sliders to adjust the Hue, Saturation, and Luminance only for your selected color range.
- Hue: Drag the slider to shift the selected color to a different hue (e.g., change red to orange).
- Saturation: Increase or decrease the intensity of the selected color.
- Luminance: Make the selected color brighter or darker.
Advanced Adjustments: Curves
The Curves section offers incredibly precise control over color and tone, including specialized curves for Hue and Saturation.
- Hue vs. Saturation: This curve allows you to pick a specific hue and increase or decrease its saturation. For example, you can make all the greens more vibrant while leaving other colors untouched.
- Luma vs. Saturation: Adjusts the saturation of colors based on their luminance (brightness). You can make brighter areas more saturated or vice-versa.
- Saturation vs. Saturation: Lets you target already saturated colors and increase or decrease their saturation further, or boost less saturated colors.
Summary of Hue and Saturation Adjustment Methods
| Method | Type of Adjustment | Best For | Key Controls |
|---|---|---|---|
| Basic Correction | Global Saturation | Quick, overall intensity changes | Saturation slider |
| Creative Look | Global Saturation/Vibrance | Enhancing overall color, especially skin tones, with more nuanced control | Vibrance, Saturation sliders |
| HSL Secondary | Targeted Hue, Sat, Luma | Changing specific colors in the scene (e.g., making a red car blue) | Eyedropper tools, H/S/L sliders (for selection), Denoise/Blur, Hue/Sat/Luma sliders (for correction) |
| Curves | Precise per-color control | Advanced color grading, fine-tuning specific color ranges | Hue vs. Sat, Luma vs. Sat, Sat vs. Sat curves |
By utilizing these tools within the Lumetri Color panel, you can achieve a wide range of creative and corrective color adjustments for your video footage in Adobe Premiere Pro.
