P: LR4 doesn't display point curve adjustments made in LR3

[FeedbackCommunityMember]

After updating from LR3, LR4 has reset my tone curves. I use custom tone curves on almost every picture, and all my contrast treatments this way seem to have gone. Initially the previews were still the old ones, so I only noticed after opening several pictures in the develop module, just to see my meticulous tone curve adjustments be removed.

Is anyone else seeing this?

[Check-raise Charley]

Charlie, thanks for the heads up about 4.1 RC. Maybe I'll wait before updating, since I already used the script for 4.0 and it worked fine.

The issue you mentioned, that when updating the process version you get all these extra points on the curve, is because the new baseline point curve, what's called Linear in the 2012 process, is actually equivalent to the old "Medium Contrast" curve in the 2010 process. If you take an image with a linear curve in the 2010 process and update it to the 2012 process, it will try to match the old linear curve by making a weird reverse s-curve - hence all the extra points.

For that matter, the numbers have changed in the new Basic Tone sliders. In other words, the standard defaults are actually the same (or close as they can get considering the differences in the process), but all zeros in the new process equates to +50 Brightness, +25 Contrast, and 5 Blacks in the old process. The equivalent of having everything zeroed in the 2010 process is roughly -1.00 Exposure, -33 Contrast, and +25 Blacks in the 2012 process.

Michael Frye

[Check-raise Charley]

And... there are so many differences between the 2010 and 2012 process that I'm taking the approach of not updating the process version on images if I'm already happy with the way they look, and only updating older photos if I want to try to take advantage of the new Highlights and Shadows tools - and then figuring I'll have to start processing the image from scratch.

[Tom Hogarty]

Michael, that is exactly the approach the team is recommending.

Regards,
Tom

[Benjamin Warde]

Hi Charlie,

If the 4.1 RC is failing to find and fix all of your photos with point curves, we definitely want to get that fixed. I need some more info, and will contact you privately.

Thanks,
Ben

[FeedbackCommunityMember]

I'm traveling, so I could only do a quick test with LR4.1RC

I'm on OSX Lion, LR3.6 64bit upgrade to LR4.1RC - I'm testing with a test catalog that has pictures with different kinds of tone curves, presets, custom, linear, medium contrast, etc. - they are JPG, TIF and CR2 (5DMkII files).

Initial findings: on first look tone curves now seem to survive the upgrade.

However, I'm still seeing inconsistent tone curve behavior when switching to PV2012

TIF/JPG:
When updating from PV2010 to PV2012, custom tone curves on TIF and JPG files stay the way they were before (e.g. same number of points, same curve). The contrast of the preview slightly changes, but that's expected, given the new process version.

CR2 (Canon Raw):
When updating the process version on CR2 files, custom tone curves are turned into 16-point-monsters that are pretty much unusable. This is not expected behavior.

I couldn't test any other Raw formats, but I assume the same behavior as with the CR2 files.

[Lee_Jay]

"When updating the process version on CR2 files, custom tone curves are turned into 16-point-monsters that are pretty much unusable. This is not expected behavior. "

This is because the old medium contrast is now linear, and tone curves have to be smooshed in the same way to keep them roughly the same.

[FeedbackCommunityMember]

Lee Jay, this doesn't explain why the tone curve is treated differently for tifs an raws.

[EricBier]

I remain concerned about the known and unknown effects that "upgrading" causes to my photos. I found that I can maintain the Tone Curve settings as I set them in LR 3. I did this by importing all of my photos into a new LR4 catalog.

It is important to note that importing the photos erases all History steps in all photos. I have never used history in the thousands of photos I have adjusted, and this led to a more than 60% reduction in the size of my LR catalog.

This also resulted in the loss of virtual copies, however I recovered these by converting the VC's to DNG and importing them into LR4. Collections are also lost, which I do not use. Other catalog items are also lost. However, I recovered all of my keywords and Metadata.

I have not tried it, but I believe that everything, except History can be recovered by importing the photos that I imported in LR4 into LR3, and then upgrading the catalog.

Before trying any of this I made a backup of all of my photos and LR3 catalog, so I can go back and start over if necessary.

The important thing for me is to be sure that my photos look the way I wanted them to look when I adjusted them, including accurate Tone Curves. This approach does just that.

[Lee_Jay]

Yes, it does.

The old default for raws was medium contrast, while for baked images it was linear. Now it's linear for both.

[dorin_nicolaescu]

Hi Ben,

Yes, all the images are imported after ACR (the capture date of the youngest one is 11 Feb 2007, a week before Lightroom 1 was released :). I am on Windows 7 x64.

But today, I have reconverted my lr3 catalog with 4.1RC and could not find a single image with a lost tone curve, be it a Custom, Linear or any other.

If you still need the sample file, here it is https://www.yousendit.com/download/M3...

[Gabriel_de_Kadt]

Just a quick note to say thanks to the team for posting the script to recover my LR3 curves but importantly to the other users that posted a) how to find it (hiding nested comments is a NOT helpful feature in forum design - as simple web dev hack should fix this ASAP) and b) actually sharing clear instructions on how to use it.

While I had felt like an early adopter fool -- I've enough experience to know to wait a couple of months before taking on a serious update -- I'm now very happily using LR4: making books directly from DNG files is such a massive timesaver for me.

Happy ending...

[BTW- just found another bug in this forum - cancelled signing (to backup my reply) and the reply button no longer functions]

[FeedbackCommunityMember]

As others have experienced, not all my photos using curve tone are taken into account by the RC 4.1 (around 1/3 on a test catalog for me).
Those with corrected curves are good. The only visual difference comes from the better rendering of edges with clarity (a wonderful improvement).
However 2/3 of my photos are rendered significantly different from expected when converted to the new process (and correction involves serious redevelopping).
the 2010 rendering in the RC4.1 is correct so keeping the old stuff untouched is an option. Still I'm waiting for the moment before switching.

[EricBier]

Hi Michael

I am finding that the new sliders in LR4 are extremely effective. I am wondering if routine Tone Curve adjustments are helpful any more. How do you feel about using the Basic Sliders for adjustments, and not using the Tone Curve? What would I be giving up by abandoning the Tone Curve?

[FeedbackCommunityMember]

Same problem here: 4.1 only finds a few photos with point curves and the the fix is all over the place. The black levels and contrast show extreme variations.
I also have an issue with preferences not working. Auto levels when converting to B&W cannot be turned off.
Overall the update seems much more responsive; good job on that aspect.

Michael

[patrick_h_lauke]

am i correct in thinking that there's effectively no way to automatically keep the same visual appearance of older 2010 processed DNGs when converting to 2012? ran a minimal test, and it appears that the change goes beyond moving from medium contrast to linear for the curves. manually switching back to medium contrast on a converted shot still ends up with fundamental differences (contrast is far harsher) and possibly wrong values in the basic settings (even accounting for the fact that the values there have been rebased and changed).

see http://twitpic.com/978u8r and http://twitpic.com/978uav

this begs the question: if the suggested way to go is to just keep already processed old shots in 2010 (and having to force myself to ignore the "!" that helpfully reminds me that it's in the old process), can we have a guarantee that older processing algorithms/models will remain supported in all future versions of lightroom? and that we're not going to have a nice surprise in the next version bump, a la "this version drops support for anything other than 2012 process, sorry" (thinking about similar issues with Adobe Audition when they dropped support for non-XML format in the latest version, which meant having to manually go into each project with the old version and re-saving it in the XML format).

[Check-raise Charley]

I think you are correct - there's no way to keep the same visual appearance when converting to the 2012 process. And it doesn't matter whether you used curves or the Basic sliders originally in the 2010 process - either way, converting to the new process will change the appearance, often significantly.

I wondered the same thing about keeping images in the 2010 process - how long this would be supported. But since the 2003 process is still supported, I figure that the 2010 process would still be supported indefinitely. I hope so.

Just to clarify, one more time -

A change in the appearance of the image or the point curve when converting images to the 2012 process is not the bug referred to in this thread. The bug deletes point curve adjustments and resets the point curve to its default when upgrading a Lightroom 3 catalog to Lightroom 4 while the images are still in the 2010 process.

Michael Frye

[Benjamin Warde]

Hi Patrick,

"am i correct in thinking that there's effectively no way to automatically keep the same visual appearance of older 2010 processed DNGs when converting to 2012?"

I would say so, yes. If you like the way your photo looks already at PV2010, I'd leave it there. When you switch a photo from PV2010 to PV2012 you should consider that you are essentially starting from scratch with that photo. In my own personal Lightroom catalog, I'm not switching any PV2010 photos that I've already done work on, unless I'm doing something particularly special with a photo and think that it could really benefit from some of the new PV2012 features.

"can we have a guarantee that older processing algorithms/models will remain supported in all future versions of lightroom?"

I'm not the right person to make an absolute guarantee, but the current plan is to continue supporting old process versions in future versions of Lightroom.

Lastly, to echo Michael's comment above, let's keep this thread on topic (point curves not correctly migrated from LR3 to LR4). If there are other issues such as these that you'd like to discuss, please start a new thread.

Thanks,
Ben

[FeedbackCommunityMember]

is there any update about the issue?

[FeedbackCommunityMember]

@neoyoli I haven't seen an official LR 4.1 release yet, I believe wie are still on the 4.1 Release Candidate version at this point.

Tom, Jeffrey, would you mind providing us with a status update?

[Lee_Jay]

We are still on 4.1 RC.

[Henkki Zakkinen]

Is the script that finds affected images and history states still in in RC2? Nothing happened when I converted my catalog again.

[Rikk-Flohr]

http://blogs.adobe.com/lightroomjourn...

"The following issues were fixed in the Lightroom 4.1 release candidate 1 (March 29, 2012):
Point Curve adjustments made in Lightroom 3 and before have been restored."

[Henkki Zakkinen]

Yes, Rikk, I know. But when I converted my catalog in 4.1 RC1, I could see the script working in the background. And a collection was created with images affected. That does not happen in RC2, so I wondered.

[Rikk-Flohr]

I was replying to chrismarquardt - not you. Sorry for the confusion.

[Henkki Zakkinen]

Oh, I see. Okay 🙂