Make a specific area of an image more vibrant

The Saturate tool is used to make the colors in a specific area of an image more vivid and vibrant.

1. Do one of the following:

   • In the Tools sidebar, click Saturate or choose it from the grouped tools.

   • Choose Tools > Retouch > Saturate from the Tools menu at the top of your screen.

2. In the Tool Options pane, customize the Saturate tool:

   • Brush Size: Drag the Brush Size slider to adjust the size of the Saturate tool brush. Press and hold the Option ⌥ key to extend the range of the Brush Size slider beyond 100%. You can also manually enter a value from 0% to 200%.


     📘 Tip: You can use the [ and ] keys on your keyboard to change the size of the Saturate tool brush.

   • Softness: Drag the Softness slider to adjust the softness of the edges of the Saturate tool brush. With softer edges, the saturated areas will usually blend in better with the rest of the image.

   • Strength: Drag the Strength slider to adjust the intensity of the saturation effect.

3. Select a tonal range to saturate:


   • All: When you brush over an area to saturate it, the darkest, brightest, and midtone areas are saturated equally.


   • Shadows: When you brush over an area to saturate it, only the shadows in that area are saturated.


   • Midtones: When you brush over an area to saturate it, only the midtones in that area are saturated.


   • Highlights: When you brush over an area to saturate it, only the highlights in that area are saturated.

4. Brush over the area of your image you’d like to saturate.

Show before and after or reset effects

Show Original: Click the Show Original button to see what the image looked like before.

Show Split Comparison: Option ⌥ – click the Show Original button or press Control ⌃ + C on your keyboard.

Click Reset to discard all the current changes.