P: auto tone adjustment in 2012 process doesn't work properly

My wish is not a magic "auto tone" button that will fix ALL my pictures, my wish is a more simple one... Auto Tone was working in a very decent way (at least in the opinion of some of us) up to LR 3.X... but as of LR 4.X most of us can agree that it is acting up. I just want Auto Tone to at least work as good (or bad depending of who you ask) as it was working on LR 3.X.

That's all...

I would want to review results after auto-toning even if exposure weren't so far off sometimes. Are you thinking about hitting auto-tone then *not* reviewing the results prior to consumption? I would never do that m'self.

I'm not saying there is no room for improvement (au-contrare - I've written volumes about it...), just that it is far from unusable/un-helpful as is - I use it frequently.

Consider tweaking exposure using grid / quick-develop after auto-toning - I can usually get through a hundred photos in just a few minutes that way.

Cheers,
Rob

yes, go over hundreds of pics one by one.... and tweak their exposure individually... good solution! 😞 NOT!

Just adjust exposure after auto-toning, when it's wonky, the rest are usually ok.

@ LR 4.1 / ACR 7.1

What a shame!
It's not possible to use the atomatic tone-adjustement !!
Results are in 90% extremly under- or overexposed. Better you forgot it and change the settings by hand.
Congratulations to Adobe !

@17463643.1 final

Although I agree that the exposure is often wildly off, and the black is sometimes a little off, the rest is usually pretty darn good. I never used auto-tone much until recently, and I'm finding it a surprising time saver. Lots of photos are adjustable to near perfection simply by:

* Clicking Auto
* Adjusting exposure (and/or blacks if need be)

And if not quite punchy enough for my taste, using a cross-the-board punchifying (relative) preset (via Cookmarks). Then, much of the time, they could be considered done, although I usually go on to fine-tune, and apply locals if I've got the time...

In my experience, Lr3 was often a little off in the brightness and/or exposure settings too, just not as big of a swing as Lr4.

Improvement would be welcome, but truth-be-told, whether it's a little off or a lot, you still have to adjust it (unless it's only *very* little off...). I have lately developed a fair respect for the PV2012 auto-toner, despite the "synapse misfires" in the exposure computation... (and I'm not looking at it through kool-aid colored glasses either ;-}).

Don't get me wrong - I'd still like to see it be improved, but it's *far* from worthless/un-usable like some people are claiming, once you get an eye for adjusting exposure (and blacks) afterward, that is...

Rob

Any news?

Yes, same here. Adding myself to this thread to be notified of any fixes and developments.

Yup, it's still broken. As someone pointed out in another thread, it seems to get very confused whenever there is a very bright area in the photo (e.g. headlights). I'm not sure about the other end though. i.e. sometimes it way overexposes the shot. I realize PV2010 worked differently, but, to be honest, I wasn't very happy with it either.

Chris' tongue-in-cheek solution 3 is how I get best results. Of course, it's absurdly time consuming, defeating the purpose of autotone (i.e. a good first guess) and working in Lightroom at all. As I mentioned earlier, I'd be tickled pink if Lightroom simply had an autotone that functioned the same as Photoshop's. My sense is that Lightroom's autotone is trying to be too clever and, as a result, it gets confused too easily.

Still broken in LR 4.1 it seems (nearly the same behaviour as in the RC, with resulting auto-adjusted values in the very same range).
Solution 1: stick to the 2010 process for shots - "if it ain't broken, don't update it!"
Solution 2: edit your presets to remove any auto-toning step, and use manual adjustments only
Solution 3: export to PS, use the autotone features of PS, then reimport to LR, does a pretty good job.

Who needs a fix when there are so many solutions at hand?