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alanterra
Inspiring
December 8, 2016

P: Tone curve still broken in

  • December 8, 2016
  • 95 replies
  • 3002 views

The bug that I reported here has not been squashed in the latest Lightroom.

The problem is hysteresis in the response of points on the tone curve control when following mouse movements.

If you drag a point (say, the white point) in the Tone Curve and move it back and forth, after a few drags you will not be able to put the point back in the upper right corner of the response panel.

The underlying cause is that (a) the point does not move directly with the cursor (LR hides the cursor so you can't see this, but when you let go of the mouse button you will see that the cursor does not align with the point, (b) as you drag, the relationship between the cursor position and the point changes, when the point hits the right edge of the box and the cursor continues to the right, then when you move the cursor back to the left it does not "pick up" the point at the same location that it "left" the point, and (c) the (invisible) cursor is limited by Mac OS to stay on the screen.

The work-around (which is not perfect), is to make your Lightroom window smaller so that there is more space beyond the right edge of the window, so the hysteresis effect doesn't show up as quickly. If you have 2 screens, you can move the Lightroom window to the left screen, which effectively solves this problem.

I assume that this problem occurs for all four edges of the Tone Panel, but because the Tone Panel is on the right hand side of the Lightroom window, the effect is seen mostly when trying to move a point on the tone curve to the right hand side of the panel.

If this is not clear, let me know, and I'll see if I can post a video.

[Edit -- I just confirmed this bug for the top edge of the Tone Curve as well.]

This topic has been closed for replies.

95 replies

alanterra
alanterraAuthor
Inspiring
March 7, 2017
This bug remains unfixed!

Is there any way I can describe this bug better so that Adobe can fix it? After many months, LR CC 2015.9 is released which Adobe says "Fixed erratic cursor movements when working on the point tone curve." And that comment links (via an intermediary) to this post.

It is still true that (a) points on the tone curve cannot be moved to the edges of the panel, and (b) there is hysteresis so that as the point is moved around, the limits to which it can be moved change.

This is the second release of Lightroom that has purported to fix this bug, but has not. See https://youtu.be/VunxPxZgx5A
Inspiring
February 21, 2017
Yep. Rrrrrrgh. Infuriating. I just upgraded to Sierra, and now my editing workflow is a great deal more difficult — I do curves manipulation on at least 80% of my photos. 

Hey Adobe — fix this ASAP please.
Inspiring
February 21, 2017
Yeah, tell me about it. But look, Adobe Lightroom is a free software, you don't have to like pay monthly for using it and the problem is not that old, just a few days. Oh, wait...
Participating Frequently
February 21, 2017
I purchased a brand new MacBook Pro w/ Touch Bar last week, just installed Lightroom on it, and the problem still exists.

It obviously effects every one running macOS Sierra which has been out for almost 6 months with no solution.
JBedfordPhoto
Inspiring
February 21, 2017
This. ^^^
JBedfordPhoto
Inspiring
February 21, 2017
(shaking my head in disbelief) - so the best way to use tone curves fluidly in LR is to (first, abandon my Ferrari of desktop computers) sync with mobile then use the super-smooth tone curve on my 1st Gen iPad mini. Pardon my laughter here....It's unbelieveable.
JBedfordPhoto
Inspiring
February 21, 2017


Manipulating the tone curve in ACR or PS is a joy; just buttery smooth. Why is it that LR's tone curve is so clumsy then? It's not responsive, and God-forbid you drag a point too far out of the histogram which results in a very odd-color before trying to reset the thing (with no luck) only ending the frustration by deleting the point on the curve.

Sorry for the ramble, but I surely can't be the only one who's noticed the difference in quality with regards to the tone-curve when comparing it with ACR or PS...?
Inspiring
February 20, 2017
This is broken for me too. An update from Adobe re: when we can expect to see this fixed would be lovely. 
Inspiring
February 10, 2017
I have this issue when I use the mouse or track pad on the Macbook Pro...  Seems that when you try and move a point the movement is not constrained to the curve "box" as when I let go of the mouse pointer you can see the arrow has moved clear of the curve "box" and is somewhere above the Histogram window.
Inspiring
February 9, 2017
I don't have time to use Photoshop when I come back home and I have to send 200 processed photos in 2 hours to client. I have to use LR and its tools. I like curves but right now i want to smash my computer every time I use it.