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ChrisLeroux
Participant
October 23, 2017
Question

Is it possible to change the clipping warning's threshold (sensitivity)?

  • October 23, 2017
  • 1 reply
  • 831 views

I work for a company that takes portrait photos against a white background. We exploit Lightroom's clipping warning to clean up the background and get it as white as possible for print. However, we've recently noticed when printing some photos on mugs that Lightroom's clipping warning isn't perfect (apparently it kicks in at 250 and not the absolute 255). As a result there's a slight grey fringe on the edges of the photos, only barely noticeable (but still noticeable). I was wondering if there was any way of changing the clipping warning's sensitivity so that it only shows areas that are absolute white.

Thanks,
Chris

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    1 reply

    Mohit Goyal
    Community Manager
    Mohit GoyalCommunity Manager
    Community Manager
    October 31, 2017

    Hi ChrisLeroux,

    The change you see in clipping warning, Is it after any certain update in Lightroom? Please let us know the exact version of Lightroom you are using now? Also, you can update Lightroom to its latest version Lightroom Classic CC/ Lightroom 6.13 and check if that helps you.

    Quick Tip – Shadow and Highlight Clipping Warnings In Lightroom « Julieanne Kost's Blog

    Regards,

    Mohit

    C
    ChrisLerouxAuthor
    Participant
    October 31, 2017

    Hi Mohit,

    At the time of writing I was using Lightroom CC 2017, and have since upgraded to Lightroom Classic CC 2018. The issue is consistent across both versions.

    For clarity, I'm referring to the standard clipping warning feature that indicates when part of a photo is too bright. For the application, it's a fantastic feature as we take pictures with a white background and use a brush to increase the highlights around the subject to get as close to a perfect white as possible. The clipping warning lets us know what areas are near perfect (see image for example).
    The reason I say "near perfect" is because the clipping warning appears a bit before that threshold. This is important because we may think we have perfect white, but then when printing the image on something like a mug there will be a noticeable grey edge due to the slight imperfection.

    If I hold Alt and click on the Highlight slider, I'll sometimes get blue spots which indicate areas that aren't perfectly white. These show up as red on the clipping warning though. Here's an example (see below). To the naked eye it looks perfect, but on print those blue spots appear grey.

    The company I work for has to process thousands of photos per day. In a nutshell, I'm just curious of figuring out whether the clipping warning can be set to only appear when we've reached perfect white. That way we can process photos quickly without having to worry about potential costly print issues. If this feature doesn't currently exist, it should in the near future.

    Thanks,
    Chris

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