What is Color Saturation?
Color saturation refers to the intensity or purity of colors in an image. A highly saturated image has bold, vivid colors with no gray mixed in. In contrast, low saturation makes colors appear dull, washed out, or even completely gray. Understanding and controlling color saturation is one of the most important skills in image editing because it influences not only the visual impact of a photo, but also its emotional tone.
High saturation can create a vibrant, energetic feeling. It's often used in advertising or travel photography to draw attention and generate excitement. On the other hand, low saturation can evoke calm, nostalgia, or seriousness. Many black-and-white or documentary-style images use low or no saturation to reinforce mood and focus attention on subject and structure rather than color.
Saturation is often described in relation to how much gray is present in a color. A fully saturated color has no gray at all and appears rich and pure. As gray increases, the color becomes more muted. In practical terms, adjusting saturation gives you control over how “colorful” your image feels.
Photo editors use saturation to highlight specific subjects or create stylized looks. For example, increasing the saturation of a red jacket in a photo can draw the viewer's eye to that part of the image. At the same time, reducing saturation in background elements can help a subject stand out. This kind of targeted saturation control is a creative tool used throughout advertising, portraiture, and storytelling photography.
Understanding Color Hue
Color hue refers to the specific shade or base color we see in an image, such as red, yellow, green, or blue. While saturation describes the intensity of a color, hue identifies what the color actually is. Adjusting color hue can dramatically change the appearance and mood of an image, and it plays a major role in creative color grading, correction, and visual storytelling.
Every color in digital editing is based on a circular color model. When adjusting the hue in Photopea, you are rotating colors around this wheel. For example, shifting a blue hue toward green can turn a blue sky into teal or aqua. This kind of manipulation is commonly used to stylize photos or correct undesirable color casts.
In portrait retouching, color hue adjustments can subtly alter the tone of skin, hair, or makeup without changing the structure of the image. In product photography, it allows color variants to be shown without re-shooting the item. You can also use hue shifts to change the mood of an image. For instance, moving orange hues toward red can make a sunset appear more dramatic, while shifting greens toward yellows can give a spring scene a warmer tone.
Hue can be adjusted using adjustment layers like Hue/Saturation, which provide both global and targeted color control. By combining color hue changes with layer masks, it is possible to isolate and alter the hue of one area while keeping the rest of the image intact. This is one of the most useful techniques for non-destructive editing workflows and is a powerful way to fine-tune color harmony.
How to Add an Adjustment Layer in Photopea
To add an adjustment layer, go to the bottom of the Layers panel and click the New Adjustment Layer icon. This icon is shaped like a half-filled circle. Clicking this icon opens a list of available adjustment layers, including Hue/Saturation, Levels, Curves, Color Balance, and more. Select the desired adjustment type, and it will appear in the layer stack above the currently selected layer.
Understanding the Bottom Controls of the Adjustment Layer Panel
When an adjustment layer is selected, a panel appears at the top of the Layers panel showing the control options for that adjustment. This panel includes:
- Reset: Resets the adjustment to its default values.
- Auto (when available): Applies automatic settings based on the image.
- Presets (Dropdown): Provides preset adjustment configurations, which can be reused.
- Clipping Button: Limits the adjustment layer to affect only the layer directly beneath it rather than all layers below.
How to Reset or Temporarily Disable an Adjustment Layer
To reset the layer, click the Reset icon (circular arrow) in the adjustment panel. To temporarily disable it, click the eye icon next to the adjustment layer in the Layers panel. This allows a quick before-and-after comparison.
How Do I Use Hue and Saturation?
The Hue/Saturation adjustment layer in Photopea is a powerful tool used to change the color hue, adjust the intensity of colors through saturation, and alter the lightness or darkness of those colors. This layer affects all layers beneath it in the stack unless it is clipped to a single layer.
Clipping an adjustment layer to a single layer limits its effect to that specific layer only, rather than affecting everything below it. To apply a clipping mask in Photopea, right-click the adjustment layer and choose “Clipping Mask,” or click the desired layer, hold down the Alt key (Option on Mac), and click the adjustment layer above it. This will show a down arrow from the adjustment layer to the main layer indicating a clipping mask has been applied and whatever changes are made will only affect that layer.
To use Hue/Saturation in Photopea:
- Click the New Adjustment Layer icon (the half-filled circle) at the bottom of the Layers panel.
- Choose Hue/Saturation from the list. A new adjustment layer will appear above the active or currently selected layer.
- The properties panel will display three main sliders: Hue, Saturation, and Lightness. If the properties panel does not appear, open it by going to Window in the top menu and selecting Properties.
- Hue shifts all colors around the color wheel, changing their base color.
- Saturation adjusts the color intensity. Moving the slider to the left reduces the saturation and mutes the colors. Moving it to the right increases the saturation and makes colors more vivid.
- Lightness changes the brightness of the colors, either darkening or lightening the image.
At the top of the adjustment panel, there is a Range drop-down menu that allows for specific color ranges to be targeted. For instance, selecting “Blues” enables fine control over skies or water without affecting warmer tones like skin or foliage.
The Hue/Saturation adjustment layer includes a built-in layer mask. This allows the effect to be applied selectively by painting on the mask with black to hide or white to reveal. For example, to desaturate the background while keeping the subject vibrant, black can be painted over the subject area on the mask.
Adjusting hues takes time to master, especially when working with detailed images. With experience, recognizing how color hue shifts influence an image and how color saturation changes can control the focus or tone becomes more intuitive. Used alongside other adjustment layers, Hue/Saturation remains one of the most important tools for editing color and refining the visual impact of an image.
What is the Fill Layer Color?
A Fill Layer Color in Photopea is a type of layer filled with a solid color. It is useful for applying background colors, creating overlays, or adding visual emphasis to parts of an image. Fill layers are editable and can be combined with blending modes and layer masks for more advanced control.
To create a Fill Layer Color in Photopea:
- Click the New Adjustment Layer icon at the bottom of the Layers panel.
- Choose Color Fill from the list.
- A color picker window will appear. Select the desired color and click OK.
- A new fill layer will appear above the currently selected layer.
This layer fills the entire canvas with a single color. To adjust the color later, double-click the color thumbnail in the Layers panel to reopen the color picker. There is no need to create a new layer if the color needs to be changed.
Fill Layer Colors are often used as background layers, as color overlays, or for creative visual effects. For example, adding a deep blue fill layer set to the Multiply blending mode can cool down the mood of an image, while a bright fill layer set to Screen can simulate a haze or glow.
Masks can also be added to a Fill Layer Color. This allows control over where the color appears by painting on the mask. A white mask reveals the color, and painting with black hides it. This is particularly effective when emphasizing a subject or applying color effects to specific regions of an image.
Color Fill layers are frequently used alongside adjustment layers to help control color hue and color saturation throughout a project. They offer a flexible way to introduce consistent color tones or to unify the overall feel of a composition.
Examples for Hue Usage
Changing color hue is one of the most creative tools available in photo editing. Because it allows colors to shift across the spectrum, it can be used for subtle corrections or dramatic transformations. Below are several practical and creative examples of how color hue adjustments are used in real-world image editing.
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Eye or Hair Color Adjustment
Hue shifts are frequently used to alter eye and hair color in portraits. For example, a subject's green eyes can be shifted to blue, or brown hair can be transformed into deep red. These changes are done non-destructively using a Hue/Saturation adjustment layer with a layer mask to isolate the targeted area.
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Color Shifts in Hair
Tweaking hair color with hue adjustments is a simple way to give a portrait a fresh personality. Adjust a subject's brown hair into a bold, fiery red, completely changing the mood. With a Hue/Saturation adjustment layer and a mask to target just the hair, you can experiment freely while keeping the original intact.
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Seasonal Color Shifts in Landscapes
Landscape photography often uses hue adjustments to simulate different seasons. Green grass and trees can be shifted to golden yellows and oranges to mimic an autumn scene. This type of seasonal transformation is ideal for creating consistency in visual storytelling across photo series.
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Mood-Driven Color Grading
Subtle hue shifts are used in cinematic or editorial color grading. For instance, rotating warm tones toward teal or green can create a moody, dystopian effect. These types of hue adjustments are commonly seen in film stills and creative portrait photography.
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Stylized or Surreal Color Transformations
For artistic projects, entire images can be hue-shifted into non-natural tones. Purple skies, teal grass, or magenta oceans are examples of how color can be used to create imaginative or dreamlike scenes.
Each of these examples uses the same fundamental tools to achieve different outcomes.
General Steps to Apply Hue Adjustments in Photopea
- Click the New Adjustment Layer icon at the bottom of the Layers panel.
- Choose Hue/Saturation from the list. A new adjustment layer will appear above the selected layer.
- If the Properties panel is not visible, go to Window in the top menu and select Properties. You may need to close the Layers panel temporarily to make room for the adjustment settings to appear.
- In the Properties panel, use the Range drop-down to target a specific color band (such as Reds, Greens, or Blues).
- Apply a layer mask to the adjustment layer if the hue shift should only affect part of the image. Use the default white mask or click the Add Raster Mask icon if one is not already applied.
- Adjust the Hue slider to rotate the selected colors along the color spectrum.
- Adjust the Saturation and Lightness sliders to fine-tune the intensity and brightness of the effect.
These steps are consistent for changing a person's eye or hair color, modifying skies or landscapes, or applying creative visual styles.
Tips for Working with Eyes or Other Isolated Features
When targeting specific areas such as eyes, a quick method is to use the Ellipse Select tool or the Lasso tool on the layer mask of the Hue/Saturation adjustment layer. Draw a selection around the eyes, then press (CMD for Mac) Ctrl + Shift + i to invert the selection. This makes it easier to paint around the selection without affecting the eyes themselves. Once the surrounding area is masked, invert the selection again to return focus to the original area for final blending or cleanup.
When using selection tools, remember to either hold the Shift key to select multiple non-contiguous areas, or use the selection mode options at the top left of the interface. These options control how new selections interact with existing ones.
The four selection modes include:
- New Selection: Replaces the current selection with a new one.
- Unite (Add to Selection): Adds the new selection to the existing one, allowing for multiple selected areas.
- Subtract from Selection: Removes the newly drawn area from the existing selection.
- Intersect with Selection: Keeps only the overlapping area between the new and existing selections.
These selection options are especially helpful when creating precise masks for color adjustments or when editing multiple isolated areas within an image.
Examples for Saturation Usage
Color saturation plays a major role in the overall mood and focus of an image. Where hue determines the base color, saturation determines how intense or muted that color appears. Adjusting color saturation is useful in many types of photography and digital artwork, from subtle corrections to bold, stylized compositions.
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Increasing Color for Visual Impact
Raising the saturation of an image can create bold, vibrant visuals that stand out. This is common in commercial, food, or product photography where colors must appear rich and engaging. For example, increasing saturation on fruit in a food photo makes it appear fresher and more appetizing.
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Desaturation for a Muted or Soft Look
Lowering color saturation can create a calm, nostalgic, or even cinematic atmosphere. Reducing the saturation of background elements is often used to draw attention to the subject, while giving the rest of the image a softer tone. This is frequently used in portraits, wedding photography, and lifestyle imagery.
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Full Desaturation for Monochrome Effects
Setting saturation to the lowest level results in a grayscale or black-and-white image. This is sometimes used for emphasis or storytelling, where the lack of color allows viewers to focus on shapes, lighting, and emotional tone. This approach is also common in photojournalism and fine art photography.
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Targeted Saturation Adjustments
Saturation doesn't have to affect the whole image. Using the Range drop-down in the Hue/Saturation adjustment layer, saturation can be increased or decreased in specific color bands. For example, blues in the sky can be boosted while keeping skin tones natural. This is a practical way to balance color harmony or emphasize particular elements without over-editing.
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Stylized or Thematic Desaturation
Some editing styles involve desaturating all but one color for dramatic emphasis. For instance, an image might appear mostly grayscale except for a red dress or yellow taxi. This selective saturation approach is often used in advertising or cinematic edits to focus attention on a specific detail.
These uses of color saturation are often combined with adjustment layers and layer masks to refine control and avoid destructive edits. A strong understanding of saturation makes it possible to control how color supports the story being told in the image.
What are Levels?
Levels are a tonal adjustment tool in Photopea that allows precise control over the brightness and contrast of an image. The tool adjusts how shadows (dark areas), midtones (gray tones), and highlights (bright areas) are distributed throughout the image.
The Levels graph shows the distribution of those tones in a histogram, from pure black on the left to pure white on the right. A histogram is a graphical representation of the tonal range within an image. If this concept is unfamiliar, refer to the Beginner Photopea Tutorial: How to Use an Image Histogram for a deeper explanation of shadows, midtones, highlights, and histogram analysis.
By adjusting the black, midtone, and white points on this graph, it's possible to correct underexposure, enhance contrast, or flatten out highlights. For example, dragging the left input slider inward will deepen shadows, while moving the right slider to the left will brighten highlights. Levels are ideal for improving tonal balance without introducing significant loss of detail. They're particularly helpful for adjusting the underlying tone before applying changes to color hue or color saturation. When used in combination with adjustment layers, levels can be applied non-destructively, giving full control over the tonal integrity of the image.
How Do I Use Levels?
To use Levels in Photopea, begin by creating an adjustment layer so that the changes are non-destructive. This allows for future refinements without permanently altering the original image data.
Steps to Add and Use a Levels Adjustment Layer in Photopea:
- Click the New Adjustment Layer icon at the bottom of the Layers panel.
- Select Levels from the list.
- If the Properties panel does not appear, go to Window > Properties.
- The Levels adjustment will display a histogram and three Input Level sliders below it: black (shadows), gray (midtones), and white (highlights).
How the Sliders Work:
- Move the black slider (far left) inward to darken shadows and create stronger contrast.
- Move the white slider (far right) inward to brighten highlights.
- Adjust the gray midtone slider to shift brightness in the middle tones. Moving it left brightens the image, and moving it right darkens it.
Below the input sliders is the Output Levels section. These two sliders compress the tonal range of the image by changing the darkest and lightest output values. Dragging the black output slider to the right raises the darkest point, creating a faded or flat look. Dragging the white output slider to the left lowers the brightest value, dulling the highlights.
This type of control is particularly effective when working with images that are underexposed, washed out, or lack contrast. Combined with other tools such as color hue and color saturation, Levels help build a solid tonal base that allows color adjustments to be more effective.
Like all adjustment layers, Levels can also be masked or clipped to specific layers for localized edits. This enables refined tonal corrections for backgrounds, foregrounds, or specific subjects without affecting the entire image.
Correcting Common Tonal Problems Using Levels
When using the Levels adjustment layer in Photopea to correct brightness or contrast issues, make sure adjustments are made using the default RGB channel. This ensures the changes affect overall brightness and tonal distribution without shifting color balance. The RGB channel controls the image's shadows, midtones, and highlights across all colors equally.
Adjusting levels in RGB is the best way to enhance tonal structure before applying color hue or color saturation adjustments. Below are two common tonal problems with recommended input level values to help improve image clarity and depth.
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Washed-Out Image
Washed-out images often appear overly bright and flat with little contrast.
Suggested RGB Input Level Adjustments:- Move the black point slider to 36 to restore shadow depth.
- Adjust the midtone slider to 0.65 to reduce the brightness of middle tones.
- Leave the white point slider at 255 to preserve highlight information.
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Low Contrast Image
Low contrast images appear dull or lifeless.
Suggested RGB Input Level Adjustments: - Move the black point slider to around 20–35.
- Move the white point slider inward to around 220–240.
- Keep the midtone slider near 1.0, making small changes if needed.
These values are intended as starting points and may need slight adjustment depending on the image. The goal is to recover clarity and definition, which will make any color hue or color saturation changes appear cleaner and more intentional.
What are Curves?
Although Curves are considered an advanced tonal tool, a basic understanding of how to use them for contrast and brightness adjustment is appropriate at the intermediate level. More complex curve-based editing is covered in our Advanced Photopea tutorials.
Curves is an adjustment tool in Photopea that offer precise control over brightness, contrast, and color balance. Unlike the Levels tool, which adjusts shadows, midtones, and highlights with three fixed sliders, Curves allow adjustments across the entire tonal range using a flexible graph.
The Curves graph plots input levels (original brightness) along the horizontal axis and output levels (new brightness) along the vertical axis. In other words, the left side of the graph controls the dark areas, and the right side controls the bright areas. Moving a point up makes tones brighter, and moving a point down makes tones darker. This allows for very specific control over brightness in different tonal regions of the image.
By adding points to the line and dragging them, tonal shifts can be made more precisely. For example:
- Raising the center of the curve brightens midtones.
- Lowering the lower part of the curve deepens shadows.
- Adding a gentle S-curve increases contrast by boosting highlights and darkening shadows for images with an already established tonal range.
Curves provide greater control than Levels, making them ideal when gradual or nuanced tonal changes are needed. When the channel is set to RGB, these changes affect brightness without altering color hue or color saturation.
Curves can also be used on individual Red, Green, or Blue channels to adjust color hue or fix color casts, but this technique is reserved for advanced workflows. This tutorial focuses only on RGB tonal adjustments.
When used as an adjustment layer, Curves are non-destructive and can be combined with layer masks for localized edits. This flexibility makes them a powerful option for refining tonal structure before applying other color adjustments.
How Do I Use Curves?
To begin using Curves in Photopea, create a Curves adjustment layer. This keeps the edit non-destructive, allowing the original image to remain unchanged while fine-tuning tonal values.
Steps to Add and Use a Curves Adjustment Layer in Photopea:
- Click the New Adjustment Layer icon at the bottom of the Layers panel.
- Choose Curves from the list.
- If the Properties panel does not appear, go to Window > Properties. The Layers panel may need to be closed temporarily to make room.
- In the Curves panel, a grid graph will appear with a diagonal line from the lower-left (shadows) to the upper-right (highlights).
Basic Curve Adjustments:
- To increase contrast in an image lacking tonal separation, place one point in the lower third of the curve and drag it downward to darken shadows. Then place a point in the upper third and drag it upward to brighten highlights. The more these points are moved, the stronger the contrast becomes. In low-contrast images, this curve shape may need to be more dramatic than a typical S-curve.
- To brighten the overall image, gently raise the center of the curve.
- To darken the image, lower the center point slightly.
These changes are made on the RGB channel, which affects overall brightness and contrast without altering color hue or color saturation. Curves offer more gradual tonal transitions than Levels, making them ideal for fine-tuning highlights, midtones, and shadows.
For selective adjustments, the same masking technique used in the hue section can be applied here. Use the Lasso or Ellipse Select tool on the layer mask to isolate an area. Then press Ctrl + Shift + i to invert the selection. Paint around the subject or background to restrict the adjustment effect.
Curves can be stacked with other adjustment layers and clipped to a single layer if needed. When working with color hue or color saturation adjustments, Curves help prepare the image by establishing clean tonal contrast and highlight control.
Conclusion and Next Steps
Color hue, color saturation, and tonal adjustments are foundational skills for any photo editor working in Photopea. Understanding how to control these properties allows for subtle image corrections, strong visual emphasis, and creative storytelling. Tools like Hue/Saturation, Levels, Curves, and Fill Layers all work together to shape the final look and feel of a photo.
This tutorial introduced how to use adjustment layers to make non-destructive edits that preserve flexibility throughout the editing process. It also covered how to target specific areas using masks and selection tools, giving more control over where and how changes appear. While many of these techniques may take practice to master, each one builds toward a more confident and efficient editing workflow.
After this intermediate-level overview, more advanced tools such as selective color grading, channel-based curve editing, and blend-if options will become easier to understand. These topics, along with additional masking and tonal refinements, are explored further in our Advanced Photopea tutorials.
The more experience gained using these tools, the more natural they become. With color hue, color saturation, and tonal control now part of your workflow, you are equipped to bring stronger style, focus, and clarity to your images.
