Are you looking for some inspiration to color grade pictures in Photoshop? LUTs in Adobe Photoshop can help you make a base for your editing process. Do you know that there are free LUTs available right inside Photoshop?
Yes, they are!
And they are not bad at all.
As a beginner in color grading in Photoshop, these LUTs can really help you out. Most people are comfortable with color grading in Adobe Lightroom specifically.
But color grading in Photoshop opens a new host of possibilites.
I would suggest you to not stop at Lightroom and spend time learning color grading on Photoshop as well.
It can be daunting at first. The first jump from Lightroom to Photoshop can, and most probably, will overwhelm you.
Take it slow, learn, read and watch videos on YouTube or from your favorite creators to get a grasp of the tools available.
One of the most common mistakes I see people making while grading their pictures is that they overdo it.
The best kind of color grading is the one that you don’t even notice. It feels as if the picture was shot in that mood, in those colors. The feeling that a viewer gets by looking at the photograph should be cohesive with the tones the picture has.
How to get free LUTs in Adobe Photoshop
Create a new adjustment layer by clicking on the 4th icon from the right, on the bottom-right of your Photoshop screen.
Go to Color Lookup.
A dialog box titled Properties will appear. Click on the first option that says 3D LUT File and you’ll see a whole list of free LUTs!
You can adjust the strength of the LUT applied using either opacity or fill percentage. Select the Color Lookup layer by clicking on it and reduce/increase the opacity and fill.
Also Read: Things Every Product Photographer NEEDS | GarimaShares
Examples of how some LUTs look on pictures
What is the difference between opacity and fill?
When you make changes to a layer’s opacity and fill, the results will be the same.
Unless...
You have applied some effects to that layer. Only then you can see the difference between opacity and fill values.
Let’s see a quick example.
I’ve added this text to my picture. It has the drop shadow effect applied to it. When I reduce the opacity to 50%, this is how it looks:
The changes made to the opacity of the layer are applied to the entire layer, including the effects (drop shadow in this case) that are applied to it.
Here, I have reduced the fill to 50% and changed the opacity back to 100%:
Only the text fill is reduced by 50%, the effects (drop shadow) are untouched when the value of fill is changed.
Also Read: How to do any kind of color grading in Lightroom
Conclusion
Now that you have got a bunch of LUTs to try out in Photoshop, try them out on your pictures.
Your picture might not look great instantly when these LUTs are applied. Fix this by adjusting the opacity and other general edits such as altering the highlights, whites, shadows, blacks, etc. in your picture.
Remember that the trick is to keep it subtle.
I edited this picture for my gram on Photoshop using the LUTs and a number of adjustments made over it.
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