Color Corrections and Presets – The Creative Shortcut to Photo Editing
This year, I’ve been sharing a lot about camera equipment and lenses, building quite a collection of information on that front. But what I haven’t covered much yet is the post-shoot process. What are the next steps? What computer do I use? What machine and software do I edit with? I’ll dive into those details later this year. I've got some interesting findings about my choice of hardware and software. But for now, I want to touch on something we often overlook or don’t consider deeply enough: color correction and color grading.
I haven’t nailed down the perfect formula for color editing, and maybe I never will. It varies by game and lighting conditions. Luckily, most lights these days are LED, which don’t flicker. Fluorescent lights, on the other hand, have a flicker that’s amber and green, shifting along the length of the light tubes. So, on one side, the light is amber; on the other, it’s green. You’ll see this effect in certain stadiums, like Bloomfield. Fortunately, many places on the rez have upgraded their lighting, making photo editing a bit easier.
Color editing is its own kind of art. It’s amazing how a few subtle tweaks can completely change the vibe and storytelling in a photo. The right color adjustments can make images feel cinematic, nostalgic, or incredibly lifelike. It’s especially true in sports and event photography, where lighting is constantly shifting, and you’re trying to capture the energy of the moment. A natural look can make photos feel timeless, while bold, vibrant edits work well for action-packed shots.
So, let’s say we’re working with a typical night shot under LED lights. What color presets or adjustments do I use? I edit in Lightroom CC with its 1TB online storage, which is an amazing tool. I’ll go into Lightroom's features more later, but for a basic edit, I focus on these areas:
Light – Exposure, Contrast, Highlights, Shadows, Whites, and Blacks.
Color – Temperature (White Balance), Tint, Vibrance, and Saturation.
Effects – Texture, Clarity, Dehaze, Vignette, and Grain.
Details – Sharpening and its subsets: Radius, Detail, and Masking.
I know it sounds like a lot, but it all comes together! You can see the results in my photos.
Let’s go through some examples:
Bloomfield Rain Photos: Notice how the colors shift from green to amber?
Page vs. Ganado Game: Early in the season, I felt like I was editing photos to look like cartoons—maybe because I was enhancing them for newspaper print, which isn’t very colorful. But I also noticed that one of the other editors was over-enhancing my photos. For this game, you’ll see high Vibrance, Saturation, Highlights, and Shadows, with Blacks reduced by half (in Lightroom, lowering Blacks means moving the slider to the negative). The result? Almost cartoonish colors. But since then, I’ve developed a new, more natural preset, one I started using around Week 7. Now, should I go back and adjust all the older photos to match this new palette? It’s tempting, especially since the new settings allow for more subtle adjustments in highlights and blacks, even from day to night shots.
For the Crownpoint at Tohatchi game, I increased Clarity and Dehaze to about +15. This made the players stand out, but the background looked unnatural. With my current preset, both the background and players look more balanced and natural.
Conclusion:
Photo color editing reflects your experience and growth as a photographer. I’m still learning, and I’m sure by next year, I’ll be experimenting with a different color grading spectrum. But for now, this is where I’m at.
