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gil1908
Participant
December 7, 2016
Answered

Paint Shop Pro "Local Tone Mapping" equivalent in Lightroom

  • December 7, 2016
  • 4 replies
  • 4294 views

Hi All,

I'm new to Lightroom but have been using PSP for a few years now. Do you know if there's an equivalent in LR for the PSP "Local Tone Mapping" adjustment? Might be something like 'clarify' but I'm not sure. If you have any idea I would love to know, local tone mapping can be very useful with landscape photos, it brings out details and if used smartly can make relatively flat photos really pop out.

thank you in advance

Gil

This topic has been closed for replies.
Correct answer Todd Shaner

gil1908 wrote:

Do you know if there's an equivalent in LR for the PSP "Local Tone Mapping" adjustment? Might be something like 'clarify' but I'm not sure.

I did a little more research on this and there is an equivalent to PSP's 'Local Tone Mapping' in PS called 'HDR Toning' that can be used on a single image file. So if you have LR CC use 'Edit in PS' to open the image file and then select Image> Adjustments> 'HDR Toning.' It will open in 'Local Adaption' mode allowing you to use any of the Presets and of course create your own effect using your own control settings. It's has most of the Toning capability available in LR so there's no need to do extensive editing before sending the file to PS. I think you'll find it does everything available in PSP and more. Here are some examples:

Easily Enhance Your Photos With HDR Toning in Photoshop – Creative Closeup

Understanding HDR Toning in Adobe Photoshop CS5 | Using HDR Toning | Peachpit

4 replies

Todd Shaner
Todd ShanerCorrect answer
Legend
December 12, 2016

gil1908 wrote:

Do you know if there's an equivalent in LR for the PSP "Local Tone Mapping" adjustment? Might be something like 'clarify' but I'm not sure.

I did a little more research on this and there is an equivalent to PSP's 'Local Tone Mapping' in PS called 'HDR Toning' that can be used on a single image file. So if you have LR CC use 'Edit in PS' to open the image file and then select Image> Adjustments> 'HDR Toning.' It will open in 'Local Adaption' mode allowing you to use any of the Presets and of course create your own effect using your own control settings. It's has most of the Toning capability available in LR so there's no need to do extensive editing before sending the file to PS. I think you'll find it does everything available in PSP and more. Here are some examples:

Easily Enhance Your Photos With HDR Toning in Photoshop – Creative Closeup

Understanding HDR Toning in Adobe Photoshop CS5 | Using HDR Toning | Peachpit

    Rob_Cullen
    Community Expert
    Rob_CullenCommunity Expert
    Community Expert
    December 8, 2016

    I did a little google research, and agree that 'Local tone mapping' is close to Lr Dehaze with some similarity to Lr Clarity. But in sample images I saw it also seems to affect shadows and highlights to a greater extent. (especially when pushed to extreme!)

    The PSP term "Local" is also misleading in that the slider adjusts the whole image and to be confined to particular areas, layers and masks are needed as would Photoshop. Lr has the true "Local" adjustment tools that can apply dehaze and clarity and all the other adjustment sliders with one stroke of the brush.

    Regards. My System: Windows-11, Lightroom-Classic 15.1.1, Photoshop 27.3.1, ACR 18.1.1, Lightroom 9.0, Lr-iOS 10.4.0, Bridge 16.0.2 .
      Todd Shaner
      Todd Shaner
      Legend
      December 9, 2016

      wobertc wrote:

      The PSP term "Local" is also misleading in that the slider adjusts the whole image.....

      Local Tone Mapping is actually an HDR processing term as explained here: HDR images in photography - About Dynamic Range, Tone Mapping and HDR Imaging for Photography

      Local operators

      The pixel's location in the image is taken into account in order to determine the appropriate scaling for this pixel. So, a pixel of a given intensity will be mapped to a different value depending on whether it is located in a dark or bright area.

      Local tone mapping requires looking up surrounding values for each pixel mapped, which makes it slower (memory access is the major speed bottleneck on today's computers) but tends to produce more pleasing results (our eyes react locally to contrast). If correctly done, this results in an image preserving local contrast as well as details in highlights and shadows, as shown in these examples.

      You can achieve a similar effect in LR using the extreme -100 Highlights and +100 Shadows settings. Adding some Dehaze and/or Clarity will push it further.

        ManiacJoe
        ManiacJoe
        Inspiring
        December 9, 2016

        trshaner wrote:

        You can achieve a similar effect in LR using the extreme -100 Highlights and +100 Shadows settings. Adding some Dehaze and/or Clarity will push it further.

        I tried this with an image stolen from the internet. For me, this got better results in Lightroom  than the PSP local tone mapping, but that could be due to me going too far with the PSP settings.

        -100 highlights

        +100 shadows

        +70 clarity

        +70 dehaze

        +0.50 brightness

        +40 contrast

          ManiacJoe
          ManiacJoe
          Inspiring
          December 7, 2016

          Tone mapping is normally associated with HDR processing.

          I tried the PSP local tone mapping on an image, but I am not sure how to replicate the results in Lightroom.

          When I get a chance, will later add a set of before and after images so others can see.

          dj_paige
          dj_paige
          Legend
          December 7, 2016

          Show us an example from Paint Shop Pro, both before and after you use this adjustment in Paint Shop Pro.

            G
            gil1908Author
            Participant
            December 7, 2016

            I will add an example as soon as I get a chance.

            What local tone mapping seems to do in PSP is to kind of bring out the differences between colors and tones so for example in a photo that has relatively "flat" sky with some clouds, it will make the clouds pop out. The other side to this is typically that the sky color will become a little less blue. I know this is far from a professional description so like I mentioned, will try to add an example.

            so far, I think the LR closest equivalent is the 'clarify' (or 'clarity' not sure how it's named). It has a similar effect on photos but only up to a certain level so seems a lot "milder" than PSP.

            I don't think this has anything to do with HDR though. I am familiar with the tone mapping concept of HDR the "local tone mapping" seems to not be necessarily related to exposure or to shades vs lights etc.

            Rob_Cullen
            Community Expert
            Rob_CullenCommunity Expert
            Community Expert
            December 8, 2016

            I am so 'Old School' that I believe that "Tone mapping" is just a new term for adjusting tones (mostly luminance values?).

            And we talk about- Levels, Curves, Whites, Blacks, Shadows, Highlights, etc, etc.

            Applying "Local Tone Mapping" in Lightroom is entirely possible by using the Local Adjustment Tools- Brush, Gradient, Radial Filter.

            Each of these tools can be applied to 'local' areas using all of the settings available in the tool panel dialog-

            What more could you need?

            Regards. My System: Windows-11, Lightroom-Classic 15.1.1, Photoshop 27.3.1, ACR 18.1.1, Lightroom 9.0, Lr-iOS 10.4.0, Bridge 16.0.2 .
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