You might have seen my recent video on analogous color palette. Today I wanted to give you the full guide on it to truly help you understand and apply this powerful color theory in your photo editing.
Don’t worry if you haven’t seen the video yet! We’ll start with the basics and build from there. (Or you can watch it here)
By the end of this guide, you’ll know exactly how to use analogous colors to bring harmony, mood, and visual impact to your edits.
Basics
An analogous color palette uses colors that fall within the same range or are next to each other on the color wheel. This creates a more harmonious, natural look in your photo edits, where all tones blend smoothly together.
For example, you can create an analogous palette with shades of blue, green, or orange, sticking to just one main color family.
This approach is different from the complementary color palette, which pairs opposite colors (like teal and orange) to create strong contrast and visual tension.
Complementary palettes are often used for a bold, cinematic feel. In contrast, analogous palettes are perfect for conveying a calm, cohesive mood—especially effective in landscape photography, portraits, or storytelling visuals.
Check out the example below to see an analogous palette in action.
How to achieve analogous colors?
Now that you understand the basics, let’s break down how to create an analogous color palette in your own edits.
Step 1: Start with the Right Image
Photos with a limited range of colors work best. Ideally, the image shouldn’t have too many competing tones—this makes it easier to blend them into a harmonious look.
Step 2: Apply Basic Edits
Begin with your basic adjustments—exposure, contrast, white balance, and tone curve. After that, we can start working on the colors.
Step 3: Use These Three Tools
To apply the color palette, use the following tools in Lightroom (or similar tools in other editing software):
RGB Curves – Most powerful but also the most complex
Color Mixer – Great for selectively adjusting hues and saturation
Color Grading – Easiest for full-image tone control
Tip: If RGB-curves feel to hard to use, you can start with Color Mixer and Color Grading for the best results. It took me a long time to learn RGB-curves and they are often pretty complicated to understand as a beginner. At least they were for me.
Step 4: Desaturate Distracting Colors
Open the Color Mixer and reduce saturation on any colors that stand out too much. This helps the final color palette feel more unified and prevents clashing hues.
Step 5: Apply the Analogous Color Palette
Let’s say you want a blue-toned palette.
In Color Grading:
Add deep blue to shadows,
Medium blue to midtones,
Lighter blue to highlights.
They don’t need to be those exact tones—just stay within the same color family.
In RGB Curves:Avoid a strong S-curve. Instead, make subtle shifts that keep color consistent across shadows and highlights, preserving the tone harmony.
Finishing touches
If something is still off in the photo, you can change it with masking most of the time.
Masking is great for local adjustments, which you know if you’ve read my previous blog posts. If you want, you can read all previous blog posts here:
You can also use the calibrating tab, if you are using Lightroom Classic.
Hope you learned something new!
That’s it! It’s actually pretty simple after you know the goal. If you don’t believe me, I’d suggest you just try it.
My editing skills grew massively after I learned about the analogous color palette, because it gave me so much more options.
As I said, stay tuned for the news about the upcoming preset pack!
See you next week with another blog post!
