Lightroom AI Tackles Night Photos A Deep Dive

Adobe's new Adaptive Color Profile uses AI to analyze an image, adjusting color, tone, and contrast of raw images. Unlike presets, Adaptive Color Profile is not a "one size fits all." How would it work with night photography images, which are notoriously difficult for AI to interpret?

What Is Adobe's Adaptive Color Profile

Adobe's color profiles are settings that define how colors are interpreted in your images. It's like a "style" for your raw files, almost like "pre-processing" for your raw files. This influences the initial look and feel before you make any manual adjustments.

While Adaptive Color Profile does this, it does a bit more. Adobe has an AI-trained model analyze each photo. It then adjusts highlights, tones, colors, shadows, and more for each individual photo in an attempt to make them look, well, better. As Adobe says: "The effect is as if the AI had changed Exposure, Shadows, Highlights, Color Mixer, Curves and other controls for you, although the actual controls stay in their original neutral position."

And that is one of the key differences between Auto and Adaptive Color Profile: None of the slider controls are moved.

Speaking of Auto function, if you try to use Adaptive Color Profile and Auto function together, the above dialog box appears, waggling its virtual finger to dissuade you.

Of course, I had to do it anyway, because who doesn't love to do what we're told not to do? But as you might guess, it really didn't offer the best results.

How Adaptive Color Profile Works in Lightroom Classic

The Adaptive Color Profile only works with raw files from any camera supported by Camera Raw or Lightroom. It does not currently work with JPGs, TIFFs, or other non-raw image file formats. And yes, it did work with DNG files after I had denoised a file on Lightroom Classic.

In Lightroom, the Adaptive Color Profile can be easily accessed by clicking on the Profile Browser, which is the four boxes in the upper right corner. This produces the Profile Browser. Simply click on "Adaptive" and you will see the Adaptive Color Profile choices.

Once you select Adaptive Color Profile, Lightroom offers an Amount slider that defaults to 100. This adjustment allows you to select how much of the profile you wish to apply. You may boost it up to 200 or lower it down to zero.

Challenges of AI with Night Photography

Typically, AI models are trained on sunny landscapes, portraits, architecture, and various human-made subjects. They don't seem to be trained as much on night photography subjects. In fact, they are often trained to lift shadows. And of course, a night photo might look like a confusing jumble of shadows to AI.

I tried Adaptive Color Profile with both a Milky Way photo and a night photo during a full moon with light painting. For each of these photos, I also compared it to the Auto function. I also tried it out on a horribly underexposed night photo. Let's have a look at how it did with each type of photo.

Testing ACP vs Auto on Milky Way Photos

I used a single exposure photo of the Milky Way and Comet C/2023 A3 (Tsuchinshan-ATLAS) over Mobius Arch, located in Owens Valley near Lone Pine, California.

Raw vs ACP at 100 Percent

This was initially disappointing, as this seems very bright and lacks contrast.

Raw vs Auto Function

The Auto function differs in that it interprets what the photo needs by moving the adjustment sliders. In this way, it differs from Adaptive Color Profile, which, as the name suggests, is a color profile, similar in that sense to Adobe Color (the default) or Adobe Standard. The Auto function is even brighter, holds less detail, and has less contrast than Adaptive Color Profile, which is typically how it processes Milky Way photos. The Auto function boosted the Exposure slider to +2.66.

Comparing Adjusted Auto and ACP

While this obviously isn't close to an apples-to-apples comparison, it shows that either one is a reasonably decent starting point for processing Milky Way photos, which typically require a little more post-processing TLC than many other kinds of photography.

Either method—the Auto method or Adaptive Color Profile—offers a decent starting point. Regardless, I was hopeful that Adaptive Color Profile might fare better with a night image with light painting that was created near a full moon.

Testing ACP vs Auto Under a Full Moon

To test the color profile, I used a photo from Goffs, CA, located on historic Route 66 in California.

Raw vs ACP at 100 Percent Full Moon

This looked decent, if a little bright, but certainly considerably better than how it interpreted the Milky Way and comet photo above.

Raw vs Auto Function Full Moon

The Auto function is noticeably darker than Adaptive Color Profile. Perhaps a little too dark.

ACP vs ACP with Highlight Adjustment

For a quick photo with about ten seconds of processing, the result seems good. I left the Amount slider at its default of 100 for each photo. As anticipated, Adaptive Color Profile seemed to interpret a bright moonlit night better than a dark Milky Way image. As the AI model grows more sophisticated, its interpretation of a dark Milky Way image is likely to improve.

Bonus Test Underexposed Night Shots

I took a photo of an old Navy trainer airplane at Nelson Ghost Town in Nevada. However, I inadvertently changed the aperture from f/8 to f/22. Ooops! Consequently, the photo was very underexposed. Given Adaptive Color Profile's apparent tendency to make my night photos very bright, how would it process this very dark photo?

Raw vs ACP on Underexposed Photo

Adaptive Color Profile brightened the photo to a pleasing amount. Not only that, it addressed the color cast. And it kept the shadowy mountains appropriately dark. This is a rather pleasing rendition that offers a strong starting place to finish the post-processing.

ACP vs Presets and Auto The Verdict for Night Photography

While Adobe's Adaptive Color Profile misses the mark a bit when interpreting dark Milky Way photos, it still provides a strong starting point to begin your post-processing. The AI model performed surprisingly well with an underexposed night photo underneath the full moon, also addressing the color cast. It lifted the shadows beautifully. And it did so almost instantly.

Presets are a "one size fits all" answer that you can use when importing photos. Given the above, I am likely to begin using Adaptive Color Profile for my photos first before trying out one of my presets. Although my presets sometimes can get reasonably close, they don't adapt to photos individually.

The Auto setting can sometimes offer decent results with night photos, if typically too bright. However, it moves the adjustment sliders. I would rather get the image a little closer with one of the color profiles at the beginning, then address any additional edits with the adjustment sliders.

As for the other color profiles, so far, Adaptive Color Profile gets me closer to what I want than its default, Adobe Color, or any of the other color profiles.

We'll all still need to tweak our images manually, particularly with Milky Way photos. However, Adaptive Color Profile often gets us closer, and is a welcome feature in Lightroom Classic. I have a feeling I will be increasingly using this in place of the Auto setting or presets, especially as it grows in accuracy.