8 Ways to Change the Color of an Object in Adobe Lightroom

Changing object colors in Lightroom is easier than you think, and this article will show you how to do so.

Photoshop used to be the go-to photo editor for changing the color of objects. But now, Adobe Lightroom has several tools that rival—if not beat—its counterpart.

In this tutorial, we'll show you eight ways to change the color of an object in Adobe Lightroom.

How to Follow Along With Our Tutorial

If you'd like to follow along and see how easy it is to change the color of an object in Adobe Lightroom, you can download the example on Pexels.

There are eight selection tools in Adobe Lightroom that users can choose from to change the color of an object. Each is designed for a specific use, which means only one or two of them may be right for your edit.

All of these selection tools except for HSL / Color are found in the Masking menu and can be accessed by clicking on the Masking icon (circle) or by pressing Shift + W. Just click on any of the selection tools to activate and use.

We'll show you how to use the HSL / Color menu to change the color of an object in Adobe Lightroom, along with:

• Select Subject
• Select Sky
• Brush
• Linear Gradient
• Radial Gradient
• Color Range
• Luminance Range

1. HSL / Color

The HSL / Color tools are a set of sliders that control the hue, saturation, and luminance values of an image. You can change colors by adjusting the Hue slider and altered further by adjusting the other two sliders.

The advantage of this tool is that you can make color changes quickly. The disadvantages are that the color range is limited and that HSL / Color affects the image globally, which means additional masking may be required in Photoshop to remove the color change from other pixels. Let's see how it works on this image.

If we wanted to make the red color redder, we could simply make changes to all three sliders. For this, we changed the following values: Hue Red -47, Saturation Red +78, and Luminance Red -58.

But say we wanted to change the second glass from orange to yellow by changing the Orange Hue to +100. Since there's some orange present in the red glass, it gets affected as well. This is what we mean by global—all oranges will be affected.

Similarly, we run into trouble if we want to completely change the color of an object to something else entirely. If you look closely at the Blue Hue slider, you'll see the possible color range. So, you couldn't change the color to red.

Pushing the slider one way or the other to maximum only changes the hue slightly, not even close to red—no matter what you do with the Saturation and Luminance sliders.

By adjusting all three sliders, we could only change the blue glass to purple... not even close to red.

2. The Brush Tool

The Brush tool is arguably the most powerful and effective tool for changing a color of an object. However, it can potentially involve the most work. That's because the user will have to brush on the mask to the color and then select from the entire range of Adobe Lightroom sliders to change it.

In the Develop module, click on the Masking circle icon or press Shift + W.

Click on the Brush tool or press K.

Paint over all the green areas. Adjust the Brush size as needed.

Use the Hue slider, along with various sliders in the drop-down basic menu, to change the color to red.

Click on Subtract in the masking menu. Then, paint off the red where the effect is too strong.

Press K for the Brush tool once more. Paint over the green areas. Then, move the Saturation slider all the way to the left.

As you can see, there's a lot more work involved. But the Brush tool offers the most control because you can target every color and have the whole range of the Adobe Lightroom tools to make changes to each area selected with the Brush.

Changing the colors of people is tricky on photo editing software, but you can do so if you have Adobe's Creative Cloud subscription or photography plan. If you can't do it on Lightroom, you can match skin tones in Photoshop instead.

3. Select Subject

The Select Subject tool attempts to locate the main subject of an image with a single action. Press Shift + W and choose Select Subject. In this example, it selects all the glasses and most of the drops.

If we wanted to simply make the colors pop, we could adjust the Saturation and Highlights sliders—as shown below.

Alternatively, you could also change the colors using the Hue slider. However, the adjustment would apply to the entire selection, not to just a single glass. This means that if you use Select Subject, your subject should ideally contain just the one color you want to change.

4. Select Sky

The Select Sky tool is best for skies; in other Adobe tools like Photoshop, you can even replace them. However, you can use the tool to creative effect at times when there's space in an image that Adobe Lightroom believes to be sky. Let's give it a shot with this image.

For whatever reason, Adobe Lightroom has selected all the pixels as highlighted by the green mask. Let's use the Hue slider to partially change the colors of the drinks. We'll also move a few other sliders around to enhance them, as shown below.

You'll notice that there's now some pink in the bottom of the orange drink and green at the bottom of the blue drink.

5. Linear Gradient

Many Adobe Lightroom users will be familiar with the Linear Gradient tool. Once active, you click and drag the gradient across the part of the image that you'd like to edit. The edits then become tapered or faded across its length.

Let's say that we wanted to change the green glass to red. We'll drag the gradient across the glasses and then, like before, use the Hue and other sliders.

As you can see, we've achieved a far from perfect result. That's because of the nature of a gradient tool; the new color becomes faded and even starts to affect the blue glass.

On the other hand, you can make the drinks look like all the stronger hues are at the bottom. First, apply a gradient at the top as shown.

Push the Saturation slider to the left, and we're left with a smooth transition in saturation in all the glasses.

​​​​​

6. Radial Gradient

The Radial Gradient is another standard tool that Adobe Lightroom users have been using for years and one that is extremely versatile. It's very much possible to change one of the glasses to another color using this tool.

Place a Radial Gradient as shown. You'll have to drag the inside handle so that it is the same shape as the outside one.

Then, use the host of adjustment sliders to change the color.

We managed to change the red glass to blue.

7. Color Range

The Color Range tool is similar to HSL / Color, but it's more versatile. Once active, you simply place a point on the color you want to effect.

Then, use the Range slider to fine-tune the selection.

Use the sliders in the basic panel to change the color like in previous examples. We managed to change the red glass to a green hue.

8. Luminance Range

We normally wouldn't think of using Luminance Range to change colors of objects in Adobe Lightroom, but we can do just that. Since the luminance values of all the glasses are similar, clicking on any of the glasses will create a mask over all of them.

You won't have control over every glass, but you can use the Hue slider to adjust all the colors to something else.

The Luminance Range tool may not be useful in a lot of cases, but it can come in handy for making quick and dramatic changes.

Changing the Colors of Objects in Adobe Lightroom Is Easy

We've shown you the basics of changing the color of an object in Adobe Lightroom. It's our hope that you'll experiment further and learn how to use all the sliders to make your editing workflow more streamlined.

You might need to experiment a little, but at least of these tools will help you achieve the results you desire.