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When is right time to adjust black&white field in ACR

Forum|Forum|7 years ago
May 6, 2019
2 replies
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I am being confused regading the time to adjust the parameter black&white field in ACR:

1. Adjusting the black&white field is always the first step in ACR.

2. Adjusting the black&white field is after white balance adjust

3 Black&white field can be adjusted at anytime in ACR and can be adjusted servera times in need, totally same as other parameters.

Which is right suggestion?

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Correct answer davescm

I like to fix issues in the order of worst problems first, but you usually need to go back and fine tune. If you adjust the black and white points so they are just off clipping, and then adjust contrast or clarity, as a for instance, the black and white points will usually need to be readjusted.

Our Dag would say that you'd need an uber expensive monitor to do it by eye, but I always think that the numbers never lie, so histograms and RGB values will tell what is clipping. There is also the trick of holding down the Alt (Cmd) when adjusting the end sliders in a Levels Adjustment layer, which puts the image preview into threshold mode. So in the example below, moving the highlight slider shows the blown pixels in the red channel.

The threshold colours change to show which channel, or combination of channels are clipping as you continue to move the sliders towards the middle. I've zoomed out to show the blue tie below and included the channels panel.

Interestingly, no mater how I adjusted the sliders, Mr Trump's heart remained the blackest of blacks. Go figure.

Hi

I tend to work in this order in ACR/Lightroom. Not that it matters in terms of the end result, for the reasons stated previously, I just find it convenient.

1. Colour temperature

2. Black point (holding down the Alt key)

3. White point (holding down the Alt key to check clipping)

4. Exposure

5. Highlights

7. Shadows

8. Contrast
Repeat 2-8 as a recheck and fine tune.

Only then do I go into any other adjustments. Note this is for ACR/Lightroom only.

If building up adjustment layers in Photoshop then the order does matter as you can't unclip a clipped layer from an adjustment layer below on the layer stack.

Dave

davescm

Community Expert

Hi

With a parametric workflow - as used in ACR/Lightroom, it does not matter. Go ahead and make the adjustments, in whatever order you want, until you see the result you want on screen. ACR applies the parameter adjustments in the background and the order of application is not based on what you adjusted first.

Dave

X

xudongy99550026Author

Known Participant

Hi Dave,

The statement "ACR applies the parameter adjustments in the background and the order of application is not based on what you adjusted first" is right, but it is not aligned with " whether the order can affect the final effect", the latter is what I concerned.

Assuming scenario One I adjust the White -10, the Dark 30(first step), then edit all the other parameter to get a ideal one with Highlight -50; and the scenario Two I adjust Highlight -40 first, then edit all the other parameter to get a ideal one with White -5, the Dark 40.

My doubt is there must be difference between the ideal effects you get from the above two scenarios, it is ok if the difference is small, but should it be a big difference, Shall I try different oder and different value?

Or there is scenario Three which is combination of scenario One and Scenario Two: It doesnt matter adjusting the White& Black first or not, trying White&Black value several times along with adjustments of other parameters, I finally get a almost unque value set which can boast the final effect most, let's say similar as scenario One(White -10, the Dark 30, Highlight -50). Will this scenario always happen, assuming the user is of different levels: lower skill, average kill and pros.

Hope you can further share you experties on this.

Thanks.

Xudong

davescm

Community Expert

Like I said, it does not matter in what order you apply the adjustments. As long as the amounts of each adjustment are the same each time then the result will be the same as ACR applies adjustments in its own order not the order in which you adjusted them.

Dave

Akash Sharma

Legend

Hi xudongy,

I think there is no set rule for the time to start editing Black and White in Camera Raw. Overall it does offer much better control over editing digitally than shooting B&W on Camera. There's is some useful information here you may refer to : Color and camera raw

White balance can sometime affect the Black and white editing while the image is rendered, that's why it is advisable to do it later.

Thanks,

Akash

X

xudongy99550026Author

Known Participant

Hi Akash,

In your refered artical, there is a description:

Move the slider until the highlights (not specular highlights) are completely clipped, and then reverse the adjustment slightly.

Are the words in bold a pen of slip which are supposed to be completely unclipped?

I still have some doublts related to your comments:

White balance can sometime affect the Black and white editing while the image is rendered, that's why it is advisable to do it later.

As i understand, it seems no set rules for adjustments sequence, but it seems to be advisable sequence based on parameter dependence, as white balance affecting Blace and White. My doublts here is the the parameters are mutally affected by each other, for example, the highlight and exposure can affect the B&W value, or vise versa, the B&W value can affect highlight and exposure value, so which should go first. The reason I put this topic here is someone said B&W(understood as Black field and White field) valus is fundmental above all other parameters, so they should be anchored and fixed, and then you begin adjusting the other parameter.

Not sure about this. From you reply, it seems B&W are totally similar as other parameters, you can adjust them at any time, right?

Thanks!

Xudong

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