Using a HSB/HSL filter to adjust saturation

[jules (Jules M)]

I recently saw this Photoshop-based tutorial on using a HSB/HSL filter to adjust saturation, but I’m wondering how I would accomplish something similar in Gimp. I’d be very grateful for a steer.

Many thanks,
Jules

https://fstoppers.com/education/one-minute-tutorial-creating-natural-saturation-landscape-photos-323589

[s7habo (Boris Hajdukovic)]

Hi, @jules,

you can’t get the same result but you can get a similar (or better) result.

This is how it’s done:

Duplicate the layer two times, for the second layer chose HSV Saturisation blend mode and add a layer mask :

Choose top layer, in the main bar go to menu Colours - Components - Extract Component…:

From the list choose HSL Saturisation:

Now the top layer is the HSL component we need for masking:

With that layer selected copy this layer to the clipboard (press Ctrl+c). Now select layer mask from the second layer and paste the copied layer from the clipboard (press Ctrl+v). Floating selection appears:

Right click on that floating selection and chose anchor layer from menu. Now previous mask has been replaced by upper layer (our HSL saturation component):

We no longer need the top layer and can delete it. Now we have our Saturisation layer and original layer under it:

With saturisation layer activated, go to the top bar and chose Colours - Hue-Chroma and move chroma slider to your liking:

For saturisation layer you can try other color blend modes like HSL Color or LCh Color. Here is result with HSL Color (before-after):

Instead of HSL Saturisation component, you can also try HSV Saturisation for masking. Result (before - after):

[jules (Jules M)]

This is excellent - just what I needed - very clear to follow! Thanks so much - really appreciate it!

Kind regards,
Jules

[HIRAM (Richard E Barber)]

Great tutorial, Boris. Thanks for making that.

[Reptorian]

I was a little inspired to do something like what Boris did, but accidently found a way to generate fantasy-style saturation or pastel-like. Surprisely, Modulo-Continuous blending mode in Krita 4.2 beta is actually situationally good for photo-editing. Since I can’t post .kra file here, here’s the primary setup on Krita

All I need to do is to copy and paste picture inside the Original Group Layer, and result will generate. Here’s the After result

Here’s the Before result

This isn’t really natural, but I kind want to share my experiment with Boris tutorial translated into Krita form. If I need to adjust the blue area, I can convert to LAB mode and edit there or put in a mask over the blue area or some other ways.

Oh, and Saturation Mask Group Layer Blending Mode is Destination In which acts like a mask similar to Boris technique.