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Dave's HSL Colour Grading

Disciplines > Photography > Affinity Photo > Resources > Dave's HSL Colour Grading

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Download

Click here to download the latest 'Dave's HSL Colour Grading' macro set.

To insert this into your library, simply click on the 3-line 'hamburger' on the top right of the library panel, click on 'Import Macros...' and point it at the downloaded file. Then click on the layer for which you want a model and click once on the appropriate macro in the 'Dave's HSL Colour Grading' library group category.

Discussion

The macros in this category all reduce the number of colours, which is a common factors in colour grading. More accurately, they reduce the total number hues, as they are based on the HSL adjustment and only change the hue. This means if a hue is selected, say red, then adjacent hues, such as rose and orange, may also be moved to red.

All each macro does is to place an HSL adjustment at the top of the layer stack and change the hue value for each of the red, yellow, green, cyan, blue and magenta sub-adjustments.

The system also uses tertiary colours, so the full colour wheel includes red, orange, yellow, lime (green), green, spring (green), cyan, teal, blue, violet and rose. These name are used throughout.

Groups of grading macros, based on the 12 hues in the colour wheel, include:

• Complementary, where colours are paired with their opposite on the colour wheel.

• Triadic, where three equidistant colours from the colour wheel are used.

• Single-colour triadic, where a single colour is placed on each of the corners of an equilateral triangle in the colour wheel.

• Split analogous, where a single colour is dominant, with others pushed to the opposite (yes, not quite as definition, but I found this useful).

• A few extra examples, just for fun: Air (blue-cyan), Fire (red-yellow), Earth (yellow-green) and Water (blue-green).

To use the macro, simply click on it and either leave the HSL layer where it is or drag it to the desired position. You can also:

• Make HSL adjustments to any of the colour settings, for example setting one back to zero to retain the original colour.

• Adjust HSL Saturation and Luminosity, either by colour setting or overall.

• Adjust opacity to tone down the effect so it more subtle.

• Duplicate the HSL to intensify the effect.

• Change the Blend Mode for a different effect.

• Stack the effects, adding one colour grading on top of another (and maybe also adjust further as above).

If you want to see more clearly what is happening, apply the macros to the '12 Colour Wheel with Triangles and Values' image which is in Dave's Test Cards. You can also use the 'Smooth Colour Wheel' to see the effect in more detail.

See also

If you are having problems downloading the macros, click here to download as zip file.