When you move one of the sliders, the corresponding region of the tone curve is highlighted, so you can see which tones are affected. These sliders give you another way to make adjustments to the tone curve. If you click the icon in the bottom right-hand corner of the Tone Curve panel (circled above) the panel opens up to reveal four sliders, called Highlights, Lights, Darks and Shadows (see below). These curves affect each of the color channels in the photo respectively. The blue curve is shown below. Underneath the Tone Curve is a menu that lets you select the Red, Green, or Blue tone curves individually. You can return to the original straight tone curve at any time by going to the Point Curve menu and selecting Linear. Notice the lower left point is not touching the bottom, this creates a matte look. You can create an S-curve like this to increase contrast (add a second adjustment point first). You can also move it downwards to make the image darker. Then click and drag the adjustment point to move it up, and change the shape of the curve. To do so, left-click once on the midpoint of the curve to add an adjustment point. You can move the curve upwards (as shown below) to make the image lighter. Adjusting this curve affects the brightness values, but not the colours, of the photo. This is what you will see when you open the Tone Curve panel for the first time. One purpose of the Tone Curve panel is to give you another way of applying the same tonal adjustments that you can make with the Basic panel sliders. If you’re accustomed to using curves in Photoshop, the Tone Curve panel gives you the option of doing the same in Lightroom in addition to, or instead of, using the Basic panel sliders. Many photos can be developed in Lightroom just by using the Camera Calibration, Lens Correction and Basic panels, plus local adjustments. But the panels mentioned above will help you be more creative with your processing, especially when it comes to working with colour and tone. It is quite possible that you won’t have to touch any of the panels listed above when processing a photo. This guide is aimed at photographers who are new to Lightroom, so it doesn’t cover every aspect – just the important things you need to know if you’re just getting started with it.

In this article you’ll learn how to use the remaining right-hand panels in the Lightroom Develop module: A previous article showed you how to get started in Lightroom’s Develop module by using the Camera Calibration, Lens Corrections and the Basic panels.

Lightroom cc develop module