tubes

The same picture, processed differently. Basically, in Photoshop Lightroom 1.4, the only difference is that in the more saturated one, the saturation slider is up to 75% and Vibrance to 25%, while the less saturated one is vice-versa.

The difference, and the thought process behind those two versions:

Simply put, the saturation slider will saturate all pixels more, in a linear fashion, regardless of context. Vibrance will increase saturation exponentially in a very elastic way, boosting muted colors much more than already saturated colors.

When combined, those two sliders let you control saturation on two different levels. Cranking saturation, and putting vibration down will amplify whatever's already saturated, and giving the rest of the muted colors an even less saturated wash than before. The opposite will even out the color saturation, by bringing the less saturated colors higher, then crushing them all back down to a more even saturation.

I like both approaches, though I tend to prefer the Sat75-Vib25 more, lately. It really depends on the picture and the effect you want to give.

Once you have the setting you like, just make a Preset that changes only the VIB-SAT sliders and you can apply them on the fly, and easily compare the effect of each. It is an important part of my HDR workflow.

I hope this post gets you to fiddle with those settings in Lightroom.

Have a good day!
Info[10-20mm@10mm|ISO100|3 Exposure HDR|Available Light]