Teal and Orange Color Grading: Complete Guide (2026)
Teal and orange is a grade that pushes shadows and backgrounds toward teal and keeps skin and highlights a warm orange. It works because skin tones sit in the orange part of the color wheel and teal sits directly opposite, so the subject separates from the background by color alone. In Lightroom you build it in the Color Grading panel and HSL; on video the same look goes on as a LUT.
Why it works
Skin of every tone, pale or dark, lands in one narrow hue band between red and yellow. On the vectorscope in Premiere or DaVinci it shows up as a single line, the one colorists check faces against. Teal is the complement of that band. Push shadows and background toward teal, keep skin warm, and the face lifts off the background even in flat light, when the two are close in brightness. Warm reads as near and cool as far, so a flat frame gains some depth.
The scene usually helps. Sky, water and open shade are already cool; skin, sunset light and street lamps are already warm. The grade exaggerates a split that’s already there. That’s why it suits travel, coastlines and cities at blue hour, and struggles on frames that are one color all over.
Building teal and orange in Lightroom
Grade on a clean base. If the white balance is off, you’re painting teal and orange over a random cast, and both go muddy.
- Exposure and white balance first. Skin should look right before any grading. A warm original plus warm highlights gives you a carrot face.
- Color Grading, Shadows wheel. Hue around 200, saturation 15-25. At 180 the shadows drift noticeably green, at 220 they turn plain blue.
- Highlights wheel. Hue 35-45, saturation 10-20. Highlights need less than shadows, because warmth shows more in bright areas.
- Midtones: leave them close to neutral. That’s where skin lives, and teal there is the first thing that turns a face grey.
- Blending 50-60 for smoother transitions between zones. Use Balance if one half of the look is weak: left for more teal, right for more warmth.
- HSL, greens and sky. Move the Green hue right, toward aqua, and drop Green saturation by 10-30. Move the Blue hue left, also toward teal. Foliage, sky and water then land in the same family as the shadows, and green stops showing up as a third color.
- HSL, skin. Face going red: Orange hue right, toward yellow. Skin too loud: Orange saturation down 5-15. Face too dark: Orange luminance up 5-10.
- Tone curve. A gentle S if the image needs density. A steep S on the RGB curve also adds saturation, so set it before you judge the color.
A reference from a real file: our COLD START preset sits at Shadows hue 200 with saturation 22, Highlights 40 with 20, Blending 55. That’s moderate. Once shadow saturation goes past 30, the frame usually starts to read as a filter laid over a photo.
One more lever if you want more: Calibration, Blue Primary. Hue to the left pulls blues and cyans toward teal; saturation up makes colors denser, skin included. This panel moves the whole image at once, so start at 10-20 and keep an eye on the face.
Where it breaks
Most teal and orange problems show up in skin, in the deep shadows and on anything white. Check those first.
| What you see | Cause | Fix |
|---|---|---|
| Greenish or grey skin | Teal from the shadows bleeding into the face, or Orange saturation cut too far in HSL | Lower shadow saturation, Balance to the right, Midtones neutral, bring Orange saturation back |
| Acid teal in the shadows | Shadow saturation at 30 or more, with Vibrance stacked on top | Shadows down to 15-20, Aqua saturation down in HSL, ease off Vibrance |
| Whites picking up color: cream clouds, a yellow shirt | Warm highlights tinting the brightest parts of the frame | Lower highlight saturation, Blending back toward 50. In Lightroom Classic, hover over the white: the R, G and B readouts under the histogram should be nearly equal |
| Carrot face | Warm white balance, warm highlights and saturated orange stacked together | Cool the white balance first, then lower Orange saturation |
| Green leaves next to teal shadows, three colors in the frame | Green left untouched in HSL | Green hue toward aqua, Green saturation down |
On portraits, check skin on its own. Zoom the face to 100% and compare with the original (the backslash key in Lightroom Classic). Teal belongs in the shadows and the background. If it has reached the cheeks, the grade is overcooked, however good the whole frame looks at a glance.
The same look on video
For footage, teal and orange goes on as a .cube LUT: Lumetri → Creative → Look in Premiere Pro, a LUT on a node in DaVinci Resolve, the Custom LUT effect in Final Cut Pro. Our LUTs are built for standard Rec.709 video. If you shoot LOG (S-Log, D-Log, V-Log, Apple Log), convert to Rec.709 first with the camera’s own LUT or a color space transform, then add the creative LUT.
A LUT maps every color the same way across the whole frame. It doesn’t know where the face is and has no masks. If the teal hits skin, lower the LUT’s strength (the Intensity slider under Look in Premiere) or correct the skin separately.
Ready-made: COLD START
COLD START (CHR-01) is built on this look: teal shadows, warm highlights, a slightly cool white balance, a bit more contrast. It’s strongest on travel, coastlines, mountains, drone shots, roads and cars. The $9 pack has an .xmp preset for desktop Lightroom, a .dng for the free Lightroom mobile app and a .cube LUT for video.
One caveat on video. In our measurements the pack’s LUT pushes sky and water to teal and makes greens denser, but it cools skin on portraits. For clips with people, pull the LUT back or warm the skin up separately. The LUT targets the same look but was made separately from the preset, so photo and video come out close in color, not identical.
If you only want the warm half, with no teal, look at SANDSTORM (CHR-04): every zone pushed to burnt orange, deep blacks, high contrast. It’s a different look and not teal and orange. The other packs are on the store page, each with a before/after slider on its card.
How an .xmp preset and a LUT differ is covered in our LUT vs preset guide; installing on desktop and phone, step by step, in how to install Lightroom presets. Already have a teal and orange LUT of your own and want the same color on photos? The free LUT to Lightroom converter turns a .cube into a Lightroom preset and a .dng for your phone. It runs in your browser, and nothing is uploaded unless you tick the box yourself.
Frequently asked questions
What colors make up the teal and orange look?
Teal in the shadows and background, around hue 200 in Lightroom’s Color Grading panel. Warm orange in the highlights and on skin, hue 35-45. Midtones usually stay close to neutral, because that’s where faces sit.
Why is teal and orange so popular in movies?
Skin tones, light or dark, sit in the orange part of the color wheel, and teal is directly opposite. That separates actors from the background by color, even when the lighting is flat. Sky, water and shade are cool to begin with, so the look is easy to hold from one scene to the next.
Can I get teal and orange on my phone?
Yes. The free Lightroom mobile app has Color Grading and per-color HSL in the Color panel, so the steps above work there too. Or open the .dng from a pack as a photo, copy its settings and paste them onto your shot. For video you need a mobile editor that accepts .cube LUTs.
Does teal and orange work on any photo?
No. It relies on a warm subject against something cool: a person by the water, a car on the highway at blue hour, a street with warm lamps. With nothing warm in the frame (snow, a forest on an overcast day) or everything warm (desert at sunset), there’s nothing to separate. On food, teal usually looks off, so leave it out there.
GradeColor packs: a Lightroom preset, a .dng for your phone and a LUT for video in one look, from $2.99.