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Getting the “Orange & Teal” Look

This is a look that caught fire on social media and it’s now everywhere (and it’s still very popular). Basically, what you do is just what is says: add an orange

Step One:

Here’s the original image, which I already tweaked using the “standard stuff,“ so this would normally be my final image. But, in this case, we’re going to add this orange and teal look at the very end.

Step Two:

There are a dozen ways to do this technique, including a bunch of really complicated ways, but this simple one is my favorite and the only way I do it these days. Go go the Develop module’s Calibration panel, at the bottom of the right side panels, where you only have to do two things: (1) drag the Red Primary Hue slider to +50, and then (2) drag the Blue Primary Hue slider to –100. That’s it. That gives you the essential look, but there’s one more tweak I usually wind up doing to make the teal more teal and the orange more orange to it up a notch.

Step Three:

Go up to the HSL/Color panel, click the Saturation tab at the top of the panel, and then drag the Orange slider to the right to intensify the amount of orange, and then drag the Aqua slider to the left (and sometimes the Blue slider, if you think the particular image you’re working on needs it), until you have a nice aqua color in the sky (as shown here).

Step Four:

Here’s a before/after of this image (at the top). Note: You can change the balance between the orange and teal colors by going to the Basic panel and using the white balance Temp and Tint sliders. That’s what I did with the Dubai image here (in the before/after at the bottom). I started with the standard orange and teal effect, and once it was in place, I dragged both the Temp and Tint sliders a bit to the right to create a warmer look, but it still has that orange and teal look. There ya have it.

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