Layers in Lightroom

[Guest]

I'm a professional photographer and am wondering why selective edting with a brush is only available with exposure,  brightness, contrast, saturation, clarity, and sharpness corrections? Why can't I selectively edit with all the editing tools? Do you know how much more useful Lightroom would be if I could selectively edit with a recovery brush, fill light brush, black point brush, vibrance brush, color temp brush, tint brush, color channels brush, sharpening brush, etc? If all these extra tools are useful, and they are, wouldn't they be even more usefull if I could apply them only to the parts of my image that need them instead of the whole darn thing? Bibble Pro 5 can do it. Aperture 3 can do it. Heck, Capture One Pro 6 can do it and it can even apply those effects to layers that can been named. Adobe invented layers and masks. Why cant I have them in Lightroom? Imagine non-destructive editing with no boundaries. Don't rely one your Monopoly with Photoshop's abilities to guaranty professional photographers loyalty. There are some nice options out there catered to photographers. Pretty soon we won't even need Photoshop. You will wan't to make sure that we still purchase Adobe by making Lightroom the best of the best.Its about time Lightroom steps it up. Adobe has the capability to make a truly amazing program to meet photographers needs.

Thank you.

PS Im not dogging Lightroom. I love lightroom. I'm just making suggestions base on a professional photographers needs.

[Lee_Jay-ZyZk56]

Adjustment brushes met the highest priority needs in the time available.  I find them remarkably flexible and haven't gone to PS for a single image since they became available except for two purposes - compositing and Focus Magic.

I'm not sure fill light and recovery make a lot of sense since they are already local corrections that create their own masks based on the image content.

[Guest]

I was just working on an image where I wanted to use highlight recovery on a white wedding dress. The problem is that it took the nice looking highlight sheen away from the staircase and foliage. It also made the overall image look flat because I had to drag the slider all the way to 100% to get the dress where I wanted it. You know what else it did? It left a huge halo around the groom's shirt where it was contrasted against his dark suit. How can you say that selective editing is not useful for highlight recovery. If any adjustment in lightroom is useful, it is obviously more useful if i can apply it selectively. That's like saying layer masks in photoshop are not useful because you can just add more adjustment points on the curve to prevent highlight clipping. Or what if there is a picture lit by flash that wasnt balanced properly so that the background was really warm but the person in the foreground had a correct color balance from the flash. If i could selectively edit the color balance by painting the background, wouldn't you think that would be useful? I can go down the list and describe every single instance where selectively editing would be useful for all of lightrooms adjustments. For example, don't you think it would be useful to only sharpen someone's eyes? Or maybe sharpen the whole image but leave the skin in a portrait softer? Why should I have to go to photoshop for these simple tasks? Photoshop should only be needed by designers, not photographers. Or what if i want to boost the saturation of a red bow in someone's hair but i don't want the red lips or cheeks to get any redder? Now imagine that the ribbon has green pokadots. What if i don't want the green to get any more saturated. The only way to accomplish this is if i could select the red channel and paint the ribbon with a saturation brush that only targets reds. I could come up with hundreds of scenarios. Multiply that by tens of thousands of photographers and you can see how useful selective editing is.

Its fine if you ran out of time before this release, but you cant say that its not useful. I wrote a similar request during lightroom 3's beta testing and a multitude of photographers aggreed with me.

[AlanUniqueName]

I totally agree with this request and although not mentioned I would include my desire to have some control of where noise reduction is applied within an image.

I hate the discontinuity of stepping outside LR for what I personally consider to be within the boundaries of needs for "photo development" and not crossing a line into being photo creative or compositing.   In my view LR needs to seriously push at these boundaries as other packages are already looking attractive because they can do more non-destructively and seamlessly.    In my opinion it will be a long term strategic error for Adobe to simply adopt the response line of "but that is pixel editing" or simply "use photoshop for that".

[Lee_Jay-ZyZk56]

If you want to selectively paint highlight recovery onto an image, paint using negative exposure.

[Guest]

Are you serious? Why did you invent highlight recovery if negative exposure can do the same thing? Are you telling me that the exposure slider and the highlight recovery slider do the exact same thing? You mean all this time it has only been a marketing scam and I could have used the exposure slider to fix my blown out highlights without affecting the black point and mid tones?

Why did Photoshop developers come up with a dodge and burn tool that can be set to only effect highlights, midtones, or shadows if it's not useful!!!!!?????? Why can't I have the same thing in Lightroom? Is it that hard? The photoshop dodge and burn tool is like magic. I set it to highlights, wave it over a gray sky that's not quite white, and poof, it turns white without effecting the exposure of the horizon line. That's because it is targeting only the highlights. How can you say that is not useful? Do you take pictures?

Why can't you just tell me that you ran out of time before the release deadline. Or that it is planned for a future release so you can continue to make a profit. It's like computers. Give us 128 GB of ram, 10 GHz processors, and 16 TB hard drives and you will have nothing to sells us next year. That's fine. I understand how business and capitalism works. You have to continue to increase profits each year and please your shareholders. Fine. But don't tell me that a dodge and burn tool that only effects highlights, midtones, or shadows is not useful.

Please take no offence to my rambling. The whole purpose of this forum is for you to find out what we want so you can keep us coming back for more. Companies pay millions of dollars to research what consumers want. They monitor your web surfing and display adds that are catered to your interests. They pay for countless surveys and hire professional consultants. They pay people to test their product before it goes to market. There is a huge industry and a lot of money spent just to find out what we want. This forum accomplishes this for Adobe for free. Brilliant!

[Guest]

Josef Kissinger wrote:

Are you serious? Why did you invent highlight recovery if negative exposure can do the same thing? Are you telling me that the exposure slider and the highlight recovery slider do the exact same thing? You mean all this time it has only been a marketing scam and I could have used the exposure slider to fix my blown out highlights without affecting the black point and mid tones?

It is not a scam. It is image algorithms.

Recovery cannot work into negative values, and it is already a localized,  masked operation that understands the areas it is supposed to affect. It makes no sense to add a specific mask, or have it go into negative values. That is, negative recovery is not a meaningful concept.

There are some good points in this thread, but highlight recovery is not a good candidate for local adjustments. It is not only a bad fit, it is actually the wrong sort of control to make into local adjustment.

[Guest]

Recovery cannot work into negative values, and it is already a localized,  masked operation that understands the areas it is supposed to affect. It makes no sense to add a specific mask, or have it go into negative values. That is, negative recovery is not a meaningful concept.

I know that highlight recovery makes a mask and knows that it is only supposed to affect the highlight pixels. That is why I like using it. But I want to control where that mask is applied. I like when grass has shiny highlights. And faces look dull and lifeless if their highlights have been taken away. I want to control what is affected by the recovery tool. What is so hard to understand about not wanting to recover highlights across the whole image? I might want the sky to remain blown out, but I definitely want to see detail in a brides dress. I was told that i could just use the a brush with a negative exposure to darken the dress. Of course I can! But it will also darken everything else it touches, including skin. Skin is a midtone, not a highlight. I want a brush that I can quickly brush over a highlight that will darken only the highlight and not the mid tones. I don't want to zoom in and carefully make sure that i'm not darkening the skin that the dress is attached to. Have you ever used photoshop's burn and dodge tool with its range set to highlights? It makes a lot of sense. Maybe you have never used it.

PS. I know its not a scam. I was being sarcastic.

[Keith Reeder]

Josef Kissinger wrote:

Have you ever used photoshop's burn and dodge tool with its range set to highlights? It makes a lot of sense. Maybe you have never used it.

Actually Josef, I think it's safe to assume that most everybody here is familiar with this function in Photoshop.

Which is why many of us also have Photoshop.

The simple fact is, Lr and PS are not the same, they don't do the same thing, and they aren't intended to. A line has to be drawn between the two somewhere: it's an arbitrary line and you happen to be on the wrong side of it for your needs.

C'est la vie...

[Guest]

That is why I'm in the lightroom feature request forum. At least I thought I was.

[Lee_Jay-ZyZk56]

Josef Kissinger wrote:

That is why I'm in the lightroom feature request forum. At least I thought I was.

You aren't.  The FR forum in one down from here.

[Guest]

Sorry everyone. I thought I was in the feature request forum. That's what I clicked on. The only reason I wrote about this issue is to have these implemented in a future release. I don't have surplus free time to spend complaining. I thought I might actually convince someone higher up to implement my requests. Is there any way to copy and paste these dialogs into the feature request forum?

[Lee_Jay-ZyZk56]

Just add it to one of the many that are already there.  Like this one:

http://forums.adobe.com/message/3271976

[Lee_Jay-ZyZk56]

Josef Kissinger wrote:

Are you serious? Why did you invent highlight recovery if negative exposure can do the same thing?

I didn't invent anything, I'm a user like you.

Highlight recovery generates a mask based on the image and applies a function similar to negative exposure to the image, masked by the mask created.  This is oversimplified but you get the idea.

Lightroom is never likely to have the flexibility that Photoshop has.  That's not its purpose.  It's likely to have what is needed for 99% of photographers for 99% of their images, but there will always be times when taking the image to a pixel editor will be required.  Lightroom's purpose is to give you the ability to import, catalog, process and export *tons and tons of images* quickly and efficiently, not *one* image in every possible way.

[Guest]

I dont' need lightroom to be as flexible as photoshop. I just need it a little more flexible than it is. Are you familiar with the burn and dodge tool in photoshop? Have you ever used it? It has the ability to set set the range to only affect highlights, midtones, or shadows. It allows you do do that for a reason. Why do you think you would only want to dodge or burn only highlights, midtones, or shadows? Do you think this is a superfluous photoshop feature?

Why do other programs like Bibble pro 5, or Aperture 3, or Capture One Pro 6 all have the ability to apply masks to any of there adjustments if they didn't think it would be useful?

[JulioSene]

Josef, I agree with you! Lightroom is a fantastic tool for photographers, but developer module needs some improvements. I had already tested all of alternative tools that you mention to work with RAW images. You are right! Bibble 5 Pro has layers and permit free designed area selections, when Lightroom permit just circular areas. In my point of view, Lightroom developer module needs to be more than a different interface for CameraRAW. CameraRAW don’t need layers because is just a plugin for Photoshop and Photoshop have layers (and much more).

[Samoreen]

Hi,

Josef Kissinger wrote:

Adobe invented layers and masks. Why cant I have them in Lightroom?

Because Adobe would sell much less Photoshop upgrades. So they are not in a hurry.

[Lee_Jay-ZyZk56]

Samoreen wrote:

Hi,

Josef Kissinger wrote:

Adobe invented layers and masks. Why cant I have them in Lightroom?

Because Adobe would sell much less Photoshop upgrades. So they are not in a hurry.

That has nothing to do with it.

[Samoreen]

Hi,

Lee Jay wrote:

That has nothing to do with it.

If I had layers and masks (and therefore a selection tool) in LR and if LR had a true programming interface for plugins like Bibble or Photoshop, I for one would no longer need Photoshop. And I'm sure I'm not alone. In its current state, LR cannot be used for heavy retouching tasks that need controlled masking (LR's automasking is not enough) and sophisticated local image processing. Did you ever try to remove an unwanted object from an image in LR (just an example)?

I don't need the sophisticated graphical features of PS. If I could only have those that can help me for my photography tasks, LR would be enough. Bibble 5 has been mentioned in a previous message. Although it is far from being at the quality level of LR, Bibble Labs are moving at their own pace but they are enhancing the product. In my environment, there are photographers already using only BB5.

If you are telling us that LR has been designed in such a way that implementing layers and masks is impossible, I'm ready to believe you.

[Lee_Jay-ZyZk56]

Samoreen wrote:

Hi,

Lee Jay wrote:

That has nothing to do with it.

If I had layers and masks (and therefore a selection tool) in LR and if LR had a true programming interface for plugins like Bibble or Photoshop, I for one would no longer need Photoshop. And I'm sure I'm not alone. In its current state, LR cannot be used for heavy retouching tasks that need controlled masking (LR's automasking is not enough) and sophisticated local image processing. Did you ever try to remove an unwanted object from an image in LR (just an example)?

I don't have photoshop...just elements for those occasional pathological cases.  Yes, I removed an object using LR just yesterday (the back end of a limo).

LR's cloning and healing could certainly use some improvements and the same goes for local adjustments.  I suspect both will get on-going attention as time moves on.

[Guest]

Well their going to sell a lot less lightroom upgrades if they don't watch out. There are more designers using photoshop than photographers anyway. They can make lightroom a more expensive to make up the difference. If photographers didn't need photoshop, they'd pay extra for lightroom. I'd pay extra anyway if it could non destructive edit with layer masks.

[JulioSene]

If we compare Lightroom wiht CameraRAW we will see that develop module is a different interface for CameraRAW features. Other modules of Lightroom are very simple with many limitations and bugs. Example: try to create a jpg output using print module for more than one photo and Lightroom will create a folder with the images, but the name extensions will be separated by coma, not by point! This is a bug and still occurring in new version (LR 3.3). If Adobe didn’t solve a simple bug like it, is hard to believe that they will develop new features out of CameraRAW features. Is hard to believe that my iPhoto have better healing tool than LR. If you take photos of people, useful healing brush is very important to optimize your edition time. Talking about iPhoto (came for free on my iMac), this tool permit to create photo albums do print. Why LR doesn’t do it? Adobe needs to understand Lightroom as a complete tool for photographers and not as a different interface with the same CameraRAW features, because other players are improving their tools as fast as possible.

[David Ayars]

Josef, I don't disagree with your request, but when you post in this forum, you're communicating with other Lightroom users in an area intended to help resolve technical issues.  It's not an out-of-bounds topic for this forum, but the underlying "you people" inference, as if you're writing to Adobe employees, and expecting this to be an area for requesting features, indicates a misunderstanding. Most people who post in all of the Adobe forums (including feature requests) are users like you.  An Adobe employee who responds will have the word "Employee" under his or her name. An Adobe employee probably will see what you post in the feature requests area, though, even if they don't respond.

[hillrg]

Joseph, I believe this is an inherent design flaw in lightroom.  There has been debate on this since the betas with no indication that adobe are interested in a true layer/masking solution.  I have personally given up.  I love lightroom but I'm going to take a serious look at Capture One.

Regards

Rory

[Another Photographer]

I also would like to be able to apply highlight recovery selectively, but know not how to do it.  Any tricks (other than applying negative exposure selectively, which does not work for the reason stated)?

I am not an expert, I just like to make my images look better and the lack of layers and true masking prevent this quite often.  Unfortunately, I am out of practice using PS because I've been leaning on LR far too long.  I am afraid of moving to Bibble or Capture One or DXO because of fear of the unknown basically.

I do not expect an answer to these questions, but you never know.