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Participant
January 31, 2012
Open for Voting

P: RGB Parade and Vectorscope in Lightroom?

  • January 31, 2012
  • 51 replies
  • 56724 views

Hi
I do a lot of video editing and really like using the RGB Parade and Vectorscope.

Histogram for photos aren't as detailed. Is there any plugins or features that have similar functions like RGB Parade and Vectorscope for use inside Lightroom or maybe as an external editor?

Best regards Simon

51 replies

Participating Frequently
January 22, 2024

And still, I get monthly e-mails about people replying here that they want it. 
Speaking as part of "everyone else" - we do

Participant
January 22, 2024

AMEN AND PLEASE!!!! ASAP!!!

dankl media
Participant
November 10, 2023

Hey, so only workaround for real time scopes I've found is with OBS.

I had an idea to just create a virtual screen with only the image you are editing in it and to somehow incorporate scopes into this, thats when I found scopes for OBS. Work fine if scopes are something you love to use as I do.

Just read the read me file, very simple and crop the screen to only the working image frrom lightroom to OBS. Maybe not the cleanes and neates scopes, but they do the job right now.

If it's possible to screen capture to premier maybe that's also a viable option.

 

You can find the scopes for OBS in this post.

https://www.reddit.com/r/obs/comments/stjsrc/want_some_free_scopes_on_your_windows_pc_i_built/

Known Participant
October 2, 2023

I have to vote for a vectorscope or, at least some sort of simplified vectorscope that shows the fleshtone vector. I've been reading scopes since the 70s (and shooting photos professionally since the same era) and I never could glean as much info from a histogram. That one vector shows where a fleshtone is and anything more than a couple of degrees variation will look off to the viewer. I still can't get as much information out of a histogram as easily as I can out of a parade on a waveform monitor. 

 

I calibrate my displays carefully, but over 40 years invideo has taught me never to trust my monitors. They are only really useful for shot-to-shot matching, which is more important in multicamera production and editing. The real, accurate signal information can only be found on scopes.

 

Please Adobe (or some cool indie developer) please add this feature to Lightroom and Photoshop!!!

 

-Ric

TheDigitalDog
Inspiring
May 25, 2023

If what they learn is silly and wrong: teach them! 

Same with this “feature request” that only has 91 votes since 2015. Change takes work. 

As for Out of Gamut warnings that are OT, buggy and unnecessary and there is video to learn that too:

The Out Of Gamut Overlay in Photoshop and Lightroom

 

In this 25 minute video, I'll cover everything you need to know about the Out Of Gamut (OOG) overlay in Photoshop and Lightroom. You'll see why, with a rare exception, you can ignore this very old feature and still deal with out of gamut colors using modern color management tools. 

 

YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=00O-GTDyL0w

High resolution: http://digitaldog.net/files/OOG_Video.mp4

Author “Color Management for Photographers" & "Photoshop CC Color Management/pluralsight"
kalamazandy
Known Participant
May 25, 2023

Oh, I'm aware. But as the video points out, there are people who just use RGB/CMYK because that's what they learned. Actually using CMYK is basically pointless these days, however using an out-of-gamut CMYK check is still required. But that's an entirely different discussion.

 

Anyway, vector scopes are LAB. Incredibly useful for skin tones and seeing color shift. RGB parade is incredibly useful for white balance and understanding more distribution of your value than a histogram tells you. 

For instance, if you have a picture of someone on a stage in a spotlight, the histogram will have a nice full bell-curved-like value even though the majority of the image is incredibly dark. The RGB parade will show you the distribution of value for the rest of the image....for the most part. It's really just showing all of the values in Y separated by X. So for those that don't know, it gives you something very similar to a histogram, but flattened to a single line of vertical pixels for every column of pixels. 

It is simply, differently useful. Some will find it more or less useful, but still useful. 

TheDigitalDog
Inspiring
May 25, 2023
quote

"Please don't add that, because I struggle with learning new things and currently have a speed advantage compared to others since I've memorized every RGB combination of skin tone and would like to continue working that way.**"

Someone should inform them it is pointless and impossible considering the massive myriad of RGB color spaces that are device-dependent

Someone should inform them it is fast and easy to use Lab, a device-independent color space in Lightroom Classic, Adobe Camera Raw and Photoshop, using only two sets of values. 

Here's a video on correcting skin tones without having to resort to such frustrations:

Low Rez (YouTube)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dWaFDKrNrwc

High Rez
http://digitaldog.net/files/SkinToneVideo.mov

 

**There seems to be some perverse human characteristic that likes to make easy things difficult.” -Warren Buffett

Author “Color Management for Photographers" & "Photoshop CC Color Management/pluralsight"
kalamazandy
Known Participant
May 25, 2023

Well, yes. You just asked the same question that this entire thread is about.

 

It has become pointlessly heated also, as people object to a feature that they don't have to use but already exists, just not in their software. 

This should exist also in Photoshop.

 

The people who don't want it, don't need to use it. Good for them.

The rest of us, can use the same workflow in both video and photography. You could now check skin tones without having to reference stupid skin color charts or worry about your monitor being calibrated and viewing in proper lighting. 

I assume in adding vector scopes RGB parade would also be part of that, which then also means you can white balance in the same way. Images with multiple color light sources make white balancing a pain in the butt, and with RGB parade you can visually see what is happening all across the image and get a good average as your starting point. 

 

I've asked several professional photographers what they thought. They all agreed that they don't think they need it. And HA, they also didn't understand it because they hadn't ever used it in video software. So I opened up an image in AfterEffects and showed them how it worked. And every single one of them then changed their mind and said they would like to have that tool available in their software as well. 

 

Unless it would harm the software in some way, like making it incredibly slow as a result, then it would be silly Not to consider adding it. That would be like if they wanted to add something like the essential graphics text panel to Photoshop and me objecting to it because I don't think I would use it. It'd probably be useful to some people, and with how that may change how people create mogrts already, maybe that would increase adoption and there would be improved mogrts out there that aren't limited to a single font and size (because making them responsive is a lot of extra work). So leave your objections to yourself unless you are able to state facts that contribute to the harm it would cause you.

One objection you might have would be, "Please don't add that, because I struggle with learning new things and currently have a speed advantage compared to others since I've memorized every RGB combination of skin tone and would like to continue working that way."

Participating Frequently
May 23, 2023

Just curious if people would find a vectorscope to be a useful feature in Lightroom Classic?

I know I tend to waffle on where I want my white point to be in an image, and atleast with video and using the vectorscope its alot easier to get a base white balance, remove colors cast, etc.

Since we have the Color Grading panel now, I don't think having a vectorscope (maybe waveform too) would be a tall ask at this point. Of course there's hardware options but just to have it built in to use in conjuction with the histogram would be amazing.

 

Just throwing that out there, thanks for your time!

Participant
April 6, 2023

Funny how some people here would actually waste everyone's time by objecting to a feature request... It's as though the inclusion of a vectorscope would mean the end of the world for them. Guys, you know you can choose to show or hide, right? And if a feature helps the workflow for some, then it's up to Adobe decide. What's the point of objecting? There are many features in LR that I don't use, but those features might be useful to the work of some others. Isn't this the more... mature way of thinking?