# Adobe Lightroom Classic: Advanced Workflow & Tips for Enhancing Your Color Edits - review & insight | Gareth B. Davies Source: https://garethbdavies.com/course-insights/adobe-lightroom-classic-advanced-workflow-and-tips-for-enhancing-your-color-edits/ [← All courses](https://garethbdavies.com/course-insights/) Photography · Solid intro · Rated 7 /10 # Adobe Lightroom Classic: Advanced Workflow & Tips for Enhancing Your Color Edits Updated September 2026 Evgeniya & Dominic Righini-Brand · Graphic Design & Photography Intermediate · 98 min A dense, tool-by-tool workflow for intermediate editors who already know Lightroom but want their color grading to stop looking accidental. [Get a Free Month on Skillshare](https://skillshare.eqcm.net/c/3155494/298081/4650?u=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.skillshare.com%2Fclasses%2Fadobe-lightroom-classic-advanced-workflow-and-tips-for-enhancing-your-color-edits%2F984362778) New to Skillshare? Your first month is free, enough to take this course at no cost. This course is not a Lightroom orientation. It assumes the viewer already knows where the sliders live and instead spends its 98 minutes on sequencing: in what order should Profiles, Curves, Calibration, Color Grading, HSL, and Masks be applied so they build on each other instead of fighting each other. That framing is the course's real subject, and it is a genuinely useful one, because most people who have used Lightroom for a year still bounce between panels without a mental model of what each one is actually for. The arc starts with Profiles as a low-commitment base layer, then moves into tonal recovery in the Basic panel (recover highlights and shadows fully first, resist boosting Contrast early, save Dehaze for local pop). From there it gets into the three curve types: the parametric curve for fast broad-region tweaks, the point curve for custom black/white point moves and faded looks, and the red/green/blue channel curves for split toning or pure contrast boosts when the same S-curve is replicated identically across all three channels. This is the most technically dense stretch of the course and probably the one worth rewatching, since the distinction between "shaping contrast" and "shifting hue" via channel curves is not intuitive and is explained with actual before/after logic rather than a surface-level tour. ## Where the workflow gets interesting The middle section on Calibration is the most counterintuitive material. Calibration's primary saturation sliders are framed as a way to boost color globally without the hue-fringing risk that comes from pushing individual HSL sliders too hard, and the course explicitly recommends over-saturating at the Calibration stage, knowing HSL will pull it back down later. That is a real editing insight, not filler, and it is the kind of thing that only comes from someone who has broken their own edits enough times to know the failure mode. Color Grading gets a full lesson on its own, covering the blending and balance sliders that control how shadow, midtone, and highlight hues mix together, plus the color psychology angle of warm versus cool splits. The HSL lesson that follows treats saturation and luminance as a paired system rather than two separate sliders, which is a useful reframe for anyone who has only ever dragged one at a time. ## Where it falls short The masking lesson at the end is the most practically dense part of the course, covering brush, Select Subject, Select Sky, luminance range, and color range masks in quick succession, but it moves fast enough that it works better as a reference to revisit than a first introduction to masking. Viewers who have never used Lightroom's newer AI-based masks may need outside material to catch up. The course also leans entirely on one editing personality: filmic, muted, slightly desaturated. That is a legitimate and well-taught aesthetic, but anyone chasing punchy, high-saturation commercial looks will need to translate the principles rather than follow the examples directly. There is also no dedicated final polish step (grain, sharpening, lens correction are mentioned only in passing), so this is explicitly a color-workflow class, not a complete edit-to-export course. The standout The explanation of how to sequence Calibration, Color Grading, and HSL as a deliberate three-stage loop, rather than three disconnected panels, is the one idea worth the whole runtime. ## What you will learn - · How to use camera Profiles as a non-destructive starting point or overlay for an edit - · A tonal-recovery-first workflow using highlights/shadows sliders before touching contrast - · How parametric, point, and RGB channel curves each serve different roles in building contrast and split tones - · How Calibration's primary color sliders differ from Basic panel saturation and from HSL - · How to use the Color Grading panel's blending and balance sliders to tone shadows, midtones, and highlights - · How to combine masks (brush, Select Subject, Select Sky, luminance range, color range) for local color and tonal fixes Best for: A photographer who already edits in Lightroom regularly and wants a repeatable, more intentional color workflow rather than a tools glossary. Skip it if: A beginner who has never opened the Develop module or someone who only edits JPEGs and needs raw-specific guidance to actually apply. Clarity of Instruction Helpful Examples Actionable Steps Organization of Lessons [Get a Free Month on Skillshare](https://skillshare.eqcm.net/c/3155494/298081/4650?u=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.skillshare.com%2Fclasses%2Fadobe-lightroom-classic-advanced-workflow-and-tips-for-enhancing-your-color-edits%2F984362778)