How to Colour Grade Wedding Photos in Smart Photo Selection

Correct first, grade second

Colour correction makes a photo accurate: neutral whites, believable skin, detail in the dress and the suit. Colour grading makes a set of photos look like one story: a warm film look, a clean bright look or a moody cinematic look. If you grade an uncorrected photo, the grade amplifies its colour cast. So the order is always the same: fix white balance and exposure per photo, then apply the shared look. For help choosing a look, read wedding photo colour grading styles.

Every adjustment in Smart Photo Selection is non-destructive. The original photo file is never changed, the sliders can be reset at any time, and the final export applies the adjustments to the full-resolution original.

Step by step: grade one photo

1. 1

   Select the photo

   Click the photo on the sheet with Move / select (V). For a closer look, choose Image › Edit photo (focus mode) (F); click Done · back to album when you finish.

2. 2

   Neutralise white balance

   In the Adjust tab, open Colour and move Temperature and Tint until whites and grey suits look neutral. Use the Eyedropper (I) to sample a white area and compare values if you are unsure.

3. 3

   Set the exposure

   In Light, set Exposure, then recover the dress with Highlights and open dark suits with Shadows. Use Whites and Blacks to set the end points. Watch the Histogram in the top dock: a graph piled against the right edge means clipped highlights.

4. 4

   Shape contrast with Curves

   Open Curves. Start from the Medium contrast preset or drag a gentle S-curve: a point slightly below the line in the shadows and slightly above it in the highlights. Lifting the black end gives a soft, matte look; keep it subtle on skin.

5. 5

   Tune colours with HSL

   Open HSL / Colour. On the Saturation and Luminance tabs, calm loud greens and oranges in the background, and use the orange and red Hue controls carefully so skin stays natural.

6. 6

   Tint shadows and highlights

   Open Color Balance, pick Shadows, Midtones or Highlights, and add a small shift, for example cooler shadows and warmer highlights. Keep Preserve luminosity on so brightness does not change.

7. 7

   Refine specific colours

   Use Selective Color when one colour family needs work, such as yellow in a marigold-heavy haldi set, without touching the rest.

8. 8

   Check against the original

   Hold Before/After (or the \ key) to compare, or turn on View › Before / after split (Ctrl+Alt+B). Step back if the skin no longer looks like the person.

Keep the whole album consistent

A single beautiful photo matters less than a spread where all the photos match. Once one photo is graded, reuse its settings:

1. With the graded photo selected, choose Edit › Copy adjustments (Ctrl+Alt+C).
2. Select another photo and choose Edit › Paste adjustments (Ctrl+Alt+V), or choose Edit › Paste adjustments to all photos to apply the look to every photo on the sheet.
3. Go through the pasted photos and fix only white balance and exposure where the light was different. The look stays shared; the correction stays per photo.
4. Open the next sheet and paste again, so the grade carries through the album.

For a look that should cover many photos at once, a new adjustment layer (Layer › New adjustment layer) applies to everything below it on the sheet. Use it for a final warmth or contrast tweak across the spread; keep per-photo corrections on the photos themselves. Adjustment layers are explained in how to use layers and masks.

Gradient maps, filters and presets

Gradient Map maps the tones of a photo onto a gradient. Presets such as B&W, Warm sepia and Teal & orange are useful at low strength for a unified tone across mixed photos, or at full strength for a monochrome chapter of the album. Tone Effects holds Noise reduction, Posterize, Threshold and Invert; noise reduction is the one you will use most, on high-ISO reception photos.

The Filters tab offers ten looks (Grayscale, Black & White, Sepia, Vintage, Cinematic, Warm, Cool, Fade, Vivid and Matte) with an intensity slider. In its Presets section, Import accepts .xmp, .acv and .cube files. XMP import covers the basic, tone curve and white-balance settings; settings that are not supported are listed after import, so you know what did not carry over. A LUT made for log footage will look wrong on finished JPGs, so use LUTs designed for stills.

Grading different events in one album

Indian weddings in particular mix daylight haldi, tungsten-lit mehndi, coloured stage lights at the sangeet and flash at the reception. Forcing one identical grade onto all of them rarely works. Instead, keep one family of settings (the same curve shape, the same shadow tint) and allow each event its own warmth. Group spreads by event so the change in colour happens at a chapter boundary, not in the middle of a spread.