A

Anonymous

Answered

Please bring back the Fill Light slider!!!

Forum|Forum|14 years ago
March 8, 2012
10 replies
34907 views

I was extremely disappointed when I fired up LR4 last night. This new Shadows slider pales horribly in comparison to Fill Light. Frankly, it's a wimp!!! For me, Fill Light was magic. I can't tell you how many people would ask "how did you do that" when they looked at my pictures hanging on the wall. It was a perfect tool and one that made LR stand out. Not only did it fulfill its intended purpose of adding just that suble amount of fill, it also was an extremely efficient way to produce an edgy, psuedo HDR, effect. Hopefully Curves will allow close to the same results, but there's no way it will be as easy and reproducable. I kick myself for not having tried the bata version before paying the $69 upgade (thankfully it wasn't $150). If I can't figure this out, I'm heading back to LR3. Do others miss Fill Light like I do?

This topic has been closed for replies.

Correct answer

Just as a followup to my origianl posting: I sat down with LR4 and specifically challenged PV2012 to allow me to recreate the effect in the Chicogo pic I posted above. I'm happy to say I got close enough for my satifiaction. I did it by maxing out shadows, cranking up exposure, slightly increasing blacks, dialing up clarity and finally uping vibrance. Incidently, I noticed that with PV2012, increasing clarity steals color saturation at a much higher rate, so it's necesary to give it back using either saturation or vibrance.

Note: I have to say, it was extremely easy to switch between PV2010 and PV2012; and I was happy to see that when clicking on any given image, LR4 automatically switches the mode to match that use to create the image. In other words, if today you were to modify one image using PV2010 and another with PV2012, LR4 remembers which mode was used and automatically switched to it when selecting one of the images. This is very slick!

Problem solved! Thanks for everyone's feedback!

D

Dave Merchant

Legend

A number of replies in this thread have been deleted because of abusive content. Unless this discussion returns to a polite and professional conversation about the software, it will be locked.

T

tropicaldiva

Participant

I have purchased so many Adobe products, I think I deserve an Adobe building named after me. I have 4 computers in my household - 1 mac and 3 Windows. I use my Lightroom license on 2 Window machines. I had to completely re-buy all Adobe products for my Mac (photoshop, lightroom. etc...) - cost me a pretty penny when I moved to a Mac machine.

THEN - this thread offers many, many suggestions on how to r"e-create" the fill slider requiring more steps in the process flow.... HELLO???? Trying to be a professional photog and the last thing I need is more workflow steps!!!!!!!

I am highly disappointed in Lightroom 4 for taking away one of the features that I used the most. With miimal effort, I was able to use Lightroom 3 to bring out the forefront detail.

Here is my new post processing process: ANY photos that need fill light - save to a jump drive. Walk across street to my parents home. Plug jump drive into my parents computer where I have a license for Lightroon 3 (windows) . Adjust photos with Fill slider. Save to jump drive. Walk back home and upload to Mac machine. Argue with Mac machine (on occasion) about reading a Windows file.

WTF??? Just give me my trusted Fill slider back!!

Adobe ---- a poor mistake on your part. I should be getting a hefty discount on Lightroom 4 for upgrading and having a PRIME feature taken away.

M

Mollysnoot

Known Participant

tropicaldiva wrote:
I had to completely re-buy all Adobe products for my Mac (photoshop, lightroom. etc...) - cost me a pretty penny when I moved to a Mac machine.

When you purchase LR (at least in the case of the boxed version), you get both Mac & Windows versions of the software. As I understand it, you can then use your licence key on either platform, so long as you meet the requirements (e.g. not installed on more than two machines, etc). Also, I know for a fact that Adobe will allow you to transfer a licence for Photoshop from one platform to the other, although you need to contact them directly in order to organise this. So, you didn't actually need to spend all that money.

I had a bit of trouble getting used to not have fill light, but now there's no way I'd go back to PV2010: PV2012 is far superior. Just takes some time to adjust. But, as already stated elsewhere in this thread, you can just switch over to PV2010 if you really want to; no need to go across to your parents house to use LR3. The feature hasn't been removed, it's just not present in PV2012.

M

C

christianbobak

Participating Frequently

I, too, am pissed off at having bought the Lightroom 4 upgrade without realising that Recovery, Fill light and Brightness had been removed. I use the first two all the time, and have no idea how or why I should be compensating. I will definitely switch back to Lightroom 3. This was a stupid move on Adobe's part.

Also, what is "PV2010" and "PV2012." I don't know what those are.

areohbee

Legend

The new controls take some getting use to, but one can get even better results in Lr4 than Lr3, once one gets the hang of it...

Forcing us to learn a new set of controls was a bold move, to be sure, but I wouldn't say it was stupid.

There are some occasions when Lr3 fill light may still be preferable but in most cases Lr4 does everything better.

More tips & tricks can be found here:

http://forums.adobe.com/message/4259091#4259091

http://forums.adobe.com/thread/968940?tstart=0

Rob

areohbee

Legend

I just did the same thing on a series of photos for my daughter's family. And I simply use the adjustment brush in Lightroom with increased exposure to brush over the faces that have heavy shadows. In my opinion, it works very well.

Yeah, I think the new basics have taken the spotlight since Lr4 released, but also the local (highlights and) shadows adjustments are awesome for this kind of thing... - maybe toss in some -contrast too. That way you can kill 2 birds with one stone: the same brush will pull the highlights down whilst raising the shadows up...

In Lr3 my most frequently applied brush was -contrast - it was my "highlight recovery" and "shadows" brush (generally mixed with several other things to help target desired tones only...).

Now I frequently brush with -highlights and/or +shadows instead - kinda does the same thing as -contrast, except preserves midtone contrast in the doing. And along with Lightroom's design criteria of keeping high's high and lows, low - these new locals don't generally leave the same washed-out/dull look as -contrast in Lr3 would. Clarity and others can still be mixed in to taste...

areohbee

Legend

I think if one could readily and always get similar results to Lr3-fill using PV2012, there wouldn't be all the kicking and screaming.

When people try the suggestions and still can't get as good results as they used to it fuels anger and frustration (aggravated by people telling them they should like PV2012 results better, since they are better, and if you don't like them better then there is something wrong with you, and not PV2012, 'cause it's better..., and anyway you can still use PV2010 so what are you complaining about?).

In my opinion, PV2012 can be very very tricky. That's more the issue, as I see it.

It took me over a hundred hours to become reasonably proficient with PV2012. That's a pretty steep learning curve.

Yes, there are some who say they learned it very quickly and never found it particularly tricky..., but I can assure you there are many others whose experience has been or will be more like mine.

Reminder: It was, from the beginning, and still is, easy to get in the ball-park quickly on most photos. It's the optimal results that are more elusive, and dealing with the corner cases.

Summary:

========

The issue with PV2012 is not that it's different (UI-wise), but that it can be so tricky to learn and get the pot-of-gold at the end of the slippery rainbow.

See related thread.

Rob

A

Anonymous

Correct answer

Just as a followup to my origianl posting: I sat down with LR4 and specifically challenged PV2012 to allow me to recreate the effect in the Chicogo pic I posted above. I'm happy to say I got close enough for my satifiaction. I did it by maxing out shadows, cranking up exposure, slightly increasing blacks, dialing up clarity and finally uping vibrance. Incidently, I noticed that with PV2012, increasing clarity steals color saturation at a much higher rate, so it's necesary to give it back using either saturation or vibrance.

Note: I have to say, it was extremely easy to switch between PV2010 and PV2012; and I was happy to see that when clicking on any given image, LR4 automatically switches the mode to match that use to create the image. In other words, if today you were to modify one image using PV2010 and another with PV2012, LR4 remembers which mode was used and automatically switched to it when selecting one of the images. This is very slick!

Problem solved! Thanks for everyone's feedback!

areohbee

Legend

Good to hear - thanks for reporting back.

Yeah, unlike Lr3's fill slider, Lr4's shadow slider is intended to affect a more limited range of tones - those considered "shadows", which varies from image to image:

* not blacks, although it affects them too since they are adjacent.

* not midtones, although it affects those too by virtue of being adjacent.

Once people get that:

* +blacks sometimes needs to be used too to boost the deeper tones more (and tone curve compensation to reseat blacks may be required).

* exposure needs to be used too to set the midtones (and in Lr4 needs to be adjusted repeatedly, before attempting to finalize shadow tone, since it's the PV2012 centerpiece - critical to all other toning aspects in PV2012, not just fill), since shadows slider is designed to have minimum impact on the mids/highlight tones.

Things really start to click fill-wise.

My opinion: In most cases Lr4 "fill" is superior to Lr3-fill, but there are also some corner cases where Lr4-fill is not as good as Lr3-fill (not as many such cases as people think at first, but it happens...). I may still be using PV2010 for some of those cases.

PS - Lr3-fill did not preserve color integrity in the shadows as well as Lr4 does. The results were actually a boost in saturation along with some interesting hue shifts that were sometimes just delightful. That has been fixed in Lr4, mostly for better, but is sometimes one of those happy imperfections that is actually missed... And speaking of clarity, it does brighten some tones along with it's darkening. I never figured out whether the apparent saturation loss is due to the brightening part or the tonal tweaking - any ideas? This aspect seems better in Lr4.0 than the beta, but I can't tell whether it's just due to less brightening or there were actually some color handling improvements specifically added (?)

Rob

D

dhphoto2012

Participating Frequently

Have to say one of the first things I noticed when first trying my new LR4 was the lack of the fill-light.

But the other controls are actually more subtle once you learn them. My installation is a good bit slower than 3.6 was but otherwise I quite like LR4

S

shamus1585

Participating Frequently

The new sliders take a little longer, but now that I am getting use to them, I think the final result is better. They could always have a 'master fill light' that results in the other sliders moving accordingly .

L

Lee Jay

Inspiring

I miss Fill Light too, but not because of what it can do (the new tools are ultimately better), but because of how fast it could do what takes many of the new tools to do. So I created some presets that I use as a good place to start. They are below.

I don't claim that these will match PV2010 fill light. What I claim is, these applied after import will provide a fill light - like effect similar in strength to fill light of the same name. I used to start many of my images with fill light, and these are a way to get to similar starting points faster.

Fill Light 20

Exposure 0.27

Contrast -15

Highlights -10

Shadows +10

Clarity 5

Saturation 5

Fill Light 40

Exposure 0.55

Contrast -30

Highlights -20

Shadows +20

Clarity 10

Saturation 10

Fill Light 60

Exposure 0.83

Contrast -50

Highlights -50

Shadows +50

Clarity 20

Saturation 25

Fill Light 80

Exposure 1.1

Contrast -60

Highlights -50

Shadows +50

Clarity 20

Saturation 25

T

Tony.S

Participating Frequently

Lee Jay wrote:
I miss Fill Light too, but not because of what it can do (the new tools are ultimately better), but because of how fast it could do what takes many of the new tools to do ...

This is my biggest problem with PV2012.

In my theatrical work, lighting changes dramatically from one shot to the next; hundreds of images must be processed individually. Fill Light was a fast correction which worked consistently from one image to the next. PV2012 requires a set of corrections, the effect of which change from one image to the next -- making for a much slower workflow.

L

Lee Jay

Inspiring

You might make finer-spaced presets than I did.

E

Eruditass

Participating Frequently

Yep, you can't reproduce the effect as easily, but local adjustments can get you there. See this thread:

http://forums.adobe.com/message/4240866#4240866

A

Anonymous

Ok, I'll have to play around with it a little more. But what I'm hearing is it will take more steps. Even then, I wonder if I'll be able to produce that edgy effect that i so liked with the Fill Light slider.

Hal P Anderson

Inspiring

You can always use the 2010 Process Version if you want the halos.

Hal

A

Anonymous

I don't miss it at all. You just have to learn how to deal with the new basic controls in PV 2012. In PV 2012 you should use exposure and contrast to get the bulk of the image right. That could mean that you have to apply more exposure than you were used to in PV 2010. If whites are too bright then, tune them downs using the highlights control. Then you can twaek the shadows by pushing up the shadows slider.

The PV 2012 is much better than its predecessor, because it can recover highlights much better (as long as any channel still has information) and it produces far less artefacts, such has halos and double contours.

dj_paige

Legend

My experience so far with LR4 is that I don't miss the Fill Light slider one bit, the Shadows slider does what I expect it to do, and I can achieve better image quality using the new LR4 sliders than I could using the LR3 sliders.

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