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ColorWheel: where power meets simplicity

Want better color in your images? Then ColorWheel is the tool for you. Sophisticated and dynamic, while beautifully simple to use, it provides maximum control and brilliant results.

©  Juan Pablo Serrano Arenas  - 2018
Shooting settings:
  • Camera: Canon EOS 6D
  • Parameters: ISO 800 - f/5.6 - 130mm
Image processing:
  • Adobe Photoshop
  • DxO PhotoLab
©  Juan Pablo Serrano Arenas  - 2018

Because ColorWheel is part of DxO PhotoLab seamless RAW workflow, any changes you make to hue, tone, and saturation are of a much higher quality than when editing lossy JPEGs. Put simply, there’s more data in a RAW file to work with, so changes can be made with greater strength and fewer artifacts such as fringing or loss of detail.

Here’s how it works.

©  Kevin Cooley  - 2020
Fonts Point, USA
Shooting settings:
  • Camera: Sony ILCE - 7RM3
  • Lens: 24 - 70mm f/2.8
  • Parameters: ISO 200 - 30 - f/18 - 51mm
Image processing:
  • DxO PhotoLab 6
©  Kevin Cooley  - 2020
Easy to see means easy to use

One of ColorWheel’s greatest assets is how visual a tool it is. Unlike other RAW processing software, the colors you choose are clearly highlighted on the wheel, so you can see exactly what you’re editing. Changes appear live on the image, too, so editing is always precise.

Choose colors with a single click

To select a color range, click on one of the eight color channels. Alternatively, pick the Eyedropper tool and click directly on the image to choose.

You can then rotate the outer edge of the wheel, making subtle adjustments to shift the selected hues, or dramatic changes to completely transform the palette of your photo.

©  Mark Bridger  - 2011
Shooting settings:
  • Camera: Canon EOS 5D Mark II
  • Lens: 100mm f/2.8
  • Parameters: ISO 200 -1/200 -f/14 -100mm
Image processing:
  • DxOPhotoLab6
©  Mark Bridger  - 2011
Quick, accurate refinements

If the affected area isn’t quite working, each of the channels can be refined using the inner wheel. This allows you to add or remove hues to the range you want to edit, making adjustments more precise.

This kingfisher looks a little different as some of its aqua tones have been shifted towards green.

©  Ryuichi Aoki  - 2021
Japan
Shooting settings:
  • Camera: Olympus E-M1X
  • Lens: 300mm f/4
  • Parameters: ISO 2500 - 1/1000 - f/4 - 601mm
Image processing:
  • DxO PhotoLab
©  Ryuichi Aoki  - 2021

To capture more of the blues, adjustments are made by dragging the inner wheel to incorporate more colors.

How to use the Saturation, Luminance, and Uniformity controls

As well as shifting the hues of selected colors, you can change their Saturation (how vivid they are), and Luminance (how bright they are) using the sliders beneath the ColorWheel.

Remember, when the white / global channel is selected, you’ll only have access to the Saturation slider.

The third slider — Uniformity — is something different.

Slide it to the right to increase the Uniformity and the selected colors will have their hues pushed closer together, making adjustments more uniform. Slide it to the left to decrease Uniformity and the selected hues are pushed further apart, so adjustments are more varied.

Sliding the Uniformity slider to the left will push your selected colors further apart, introducing more individual hues. This can be useful when you want to ensure that all the contrasting shades that you observed felt present when taking the photo are clear to see.

This frog has more shades of green — bringing out more of the yellow tones present — when the uniformity of the green channel is reduced to -70:

©  Petr Bambousek  - 2021
Glass Frog, Panama
Shooting settings:
  • Camera: Olympus E-M1MarkIII
  • Lens: 60mm f/2.8
  • Parameters: ISO 100 - 1/125 - f/10 - 60mm
Image processing:
  • DxO PhotoLab 6
©  Petr Bambousek  - 2021

However, those greens look homogeneous when the uniformity is increased to +70.

Increasing uniformity is perfect for situations where certain hues in your image need a more consistent or homogenous feel, making them less distracting or disorganized. It can therefore make a landscape seem more peaceful, or skin tones less blemished. For our frog, it increases the intensity as a lot of the yellow in the image becomes green.

Control every color

DxO PhotoLab’s ColorWheel is both powerful and intuitive, giving multiple tools in one, all with instant feedback and an interface that makes manipulating color easier than ever before.

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