Please bring back the Fill Light slider!!!

[Guest]

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?

[Lee_Jay]

Rob Cole wrote:

But, having to toss in

-contrast

+saturation

+clarity

points to a definite weakness in Lr4 shadow handling:

Well, one of the things I always hated about fill light was that it increased saturation.  So I usually applied -vibrance or -saturation along with it.  For my own presets, I'll probably remove most or all of the +saturation in the presets I posted above, and probably most of the +clarity as well because I often wasn't too happy with the local contrast enhancement that fill light did (I have a touch of +clarity in my Camera Raw defaults).  I posted them this way for people that liked these things about fill light.  You are, obviously, free to adjust them to your taste instead of being stuck with what I - or fill light - did.

[areohbee]

Lee Jay wrote:

Well, one of the things I always hated about fill light was that it increased saturation.

The problem is -contrast.

Yes, Lr3 fill had shadow color integrity issues which are solved by Lr4.

But, the primary saturation loss is due to the substantial negative contrast, NOT the repaired shadow fill coloring.

None of this matters to me anymore. I finally figured out that if you have to drop contrast to get the fill you need, then you are doing it wrong. Hint: The answer lies with the blacks & whites sliders.

PS - I got no problems using clarity for supplementation - that's what it's for. But if it's required just to get shadows filled enough, then, again: you're doing it wrong.

Rob

[Jeff Schewe]

JayS In CT wrote:

I think the bigger issue here and in some of the other improvements is that at some point we need to lock down the basic workflow from version to version in LR.

Not gonna happen and I'm sure glad that the engineers continue to advance image quality...PV 2003 to PV 2010 had a major impact. No, it didn't have a huge impact of tone and color (it did have some impact). Now with PV 2012, they have made great strides on the tone mapping capability of the adjustments. Do you really want to not take advantage of tis? Simple, keep using PV 2010 and use your old workflow. There's a reason the engineers have committed to maintaining the rendering people have applied to their images. If you want to take advantage of the new adjustments, you'll simply have to come to terms they work differently...they couldn't keep the old adjustments while updating the fundamental processing.

Look, we're at an interesting age in photography where over time, the processing of raw images is improving. In the old days, your negs were fixed. Now with raw we can go back and take advantage of the progress of new processing making our original raws better over time. And yes, with change comes, well, change. I really hope the LR/ACR engineers don't slow down…and I know they still have some tricks up their sleeves, so expect more changes in the future.

[JayS_In_CT]

Jeff Schewe wrote:

JayS In CT wrote:

I think the bigger issue here and in some of the other improvements is that at some point we need to lock down the basic workflow from version to version in LR.

Not gonna happen and I'm sure glad that the engineers continue to advance image quality...PV 2003 to PV 2010 had a major impact. No, it didn't have a huge impact of tone and color (it did have some impact). Now with PV 2012, they have made great strides on the tone mapping capability of the adjustments. Do you really want to not take advantage of tis? Simple, keep using PV 2010 and use your old workflow. There's a reason the engineers have committed to maintaining the rendering people have applied to their images. If you want to take advantage of the new adjustments, you'll simply have to come to terms they work differently...they couldn't keep the old adjustments while updating the fundamental processing.

Look, we're at an interesting age in photography where over time, the processing of raw images is improving. In the old days, your negs were fixed. Now with raw we can go back and take advantage of the progress of new processing making our original raws better over time. And yes, with change comes, well, change. I really hope the LR/ACR engineers don't slow down…and I know they still have some tricks up their sleeves, so expect more changes in the future.

I'm not taking anything away from either the desire for the continued improvements in LR or the the ability of the coders to build it. My point was that while change is a good thing, disruption isn't, and there's a fine balance between those two. As more people become dependant (we all hope) on LR for their daily lives, there is also a responsible position Adobe has to take to help protect that for the people who have invested in the product(s). Adobe certainly could redesign the whole thing if they wantedwith each new version, but I'm not sure that's the best strategy to build a loyal following.

I'm also not suggesting abandoning change, but I am suggesting that at some point there needs to be a level of certainty going forward, or a straight forward conversion from point A to point B.  Yes, people can still leave their workflow in 2010, but then why upgrade to Version 4? and if they do want to upgrade to V4 and use PV2010 there and start to use PV2012 for new, well now you've got two different processes and workflows and presets, etc.  Not very accomodating to the end user.. it may be powerful and full of new stuff, but if it becomes more of a distruption than a benefit then it really isn't a benefit any longer.

Jay S.

[Jeff Schewe]

JayS In CT wrote:

I'm also not suggesting abandoning change, but I am suggesting that at some point there needs to be a level of certainty going forward, or a straight forward conversion from point A to point B.

That's where your expectation are a bit unrealistic...while PV 2003 to 2010 was relatively mild in tonality, the fundamental changes in PV 2012 made the matching of PV 2010 to PV 2012 is impossible. The underlying algorithms are fundamentally different so no exact match can be made. That's the reality...the engineers tried real hard to do a 1:1 mapping of tones but the adjustments are simply too different.

So, if you have images whose PV 2010 settings are "optimal" keep them...don't update the conversion. For new images you'll get the PV 2012 as default. Learn how to use the new controls and see whether or not there's substantial improvement (for me, there is, YMMV).

But the bottom line is, expect change as processing becomes better. You can't stand in the middle of a river and not epect the river not to run by you...adapt, adopt and move on...use PV 2012 where it's a good thing, don't when you have already committed to a rendering (unless you want to play).

As to bringing back the old Fill Light (and its many problems) ain't gonna happen...move on, these are not the droids you were searching for...

[JayS_In_CT]

Jeff Schewe wrote:

JayS In CT wrote:

I'm also not suggesting abandoning change, but I am suggesting that at some point there needs to be a level of certainty going forward, or a straight forward conversion from point A to point B.

That's where your expectation are a bit unrealistic...while PV 2003 to 2010 was relatively mild in tonality, the fundamental changes in PV 2012 made the matching of PV 2010 to PV 2012 is impossible. The underlying algorithms are fundamentally different so no exact match can be made. That's the reality...the engineers tried real hard to do a 1:1 mapping of tones but the adjustments are simply too different.

So, if you have images whose PV 2010 settings are "optimal" keep them...don't update the conversion. For new images you'll get the PV 2012 as default. Learn how to use the new controls and see whether or not there's substantial improvement (for me, there is, YMMV).

But the bottom line is, expect change as processing becomes better. You can't stand in the middle of a river and not epect the river not to run by you...adapt, adopt and move on...use PV 2012 where it's a good thing, don't when you have already committed to a rendering (unless you want to play).

As to bringing back the old Fill Light (and its many problems) ain't gonna happen...move on, these are not the droids you were searching for...

Jeff,

I'm mixing business reality in the middle of your stream of technology, plain and simple.  I understand both sides, use what the engineers give me the best I can, but that doesn't mean engineers have free reign to change the world to the lens' they'd like to use, hence the need for the sales and marketing departments as well. As for your "keep the 2010" and "start the new with 2012" that describes exactly the duplication of effort as well as requiring two different thought trains when it comes to tonality, and don't accidently change one of your 2010s to a 2012 and hope to have it go back exactly to where it came from by switching it back to 2010.. at least my experience is once done regarding that, it doesn't quite "undone" too easily... (and yes, I know, make a virtual copy first... hmm, seems like we're managing two workflows?)

[Cornelia-I]

Mixing in business reality is nicely phrased !

What I don't understand though is your "managing 2 workflows".

Jeff simply said, leave your heritage of images as they are. Do not batch-convert them.

When you need an old one again you can decide if it merits a new try in PV2012, which would be only if you think it could be optimized further.

That is managing 1 workflow to me: the new one for new images.

No?

So business reality in LR4 means: will I keep my usual editing speed for at least the same image quality?

[JayS_In_CT]

Cornelia-I wrote:

Mixing in business reality is nicely phrased !

What I don't understand though is your "managing 2 workflows".

Jeff simply said, leave your heritage of images as they are. Do not batch-convert them.

When you need an old one again you can decide if it merits a new try in PV2012, which would be only if you think it could be optimized further.

That is managing 1 workflow to me: the new one for new images.

No?

So business reality in LR4 means: will I keep my usual editing speed for at least the same image quality?

Cornelia,

Thanks. My initial point was not just the PV2010 to PV2012 discussion, but just one in general about keeping an interface stable to minimize disruption when moving to a new version.  In the case of the two PVs though, there is a significant difference in how they operate so that, in the simplest sense, we're dealing with two different approaches to tonality (at least as long as you're mixing both PV types in the same catalog). I'm not even saying the new PV is bad, because I don't think it is. I'm trying to think of an anology and the first thing that comes to mind is if Adobe radically changed how Curves or USM changed to the point where Actions you'd been using for years and across versions became broken. In a sense that is true here as well. 

@dhphoto2012 - I like the new controls as well 🙂 but yes, with 2012 PV there is a performance impact right now, and I'm on an 8 core with 16GB of RAM.  I'm sure they'll tune it further in upcoming point releases.  I'm not seeing anywhere near the difference though as going from 2.7 to 3.0..

Jay S.

[Jeff Schewe]

JayS In CT wrote:

My initial point was not just the PV2010 to PV2012 discussion, but just one in general about keeping an interface stable to minimize disruption when moving to a new version.

But if the underlying algorithms have changed, how do you expect Adobe to deal with that? Ignore the potential improvements or let them lay fallow in the field?

If you wish to embrace change, it requires, well, change ya know?

Otherwise PV 2010 is still there (if you need it–the odds are it will stay as long as you may need it). The ACR/Lr engineers should be congratulated for keeping that option in place...while still advancing the art.

[JayS_In_CT]

Jeff Schewe wrote:

JayS In CT wrote:

My initial point was not just the PV2010 to PV2012 discussion, but just one in general about keeping an interface stable to minimize disruption when moving to a new version.

But if the underlying algorithms have changed, how do you expect Adobe to deal with that? Ignore the potential improvements or let them lay fallow in the field?

If you wish to embrace change, it requires, well, change ya know?

Otherwise PV 2010 is still there (if you need it–the odds are it will stay as long as you may need it). The ACR/Lr engineers should be congratulated for keeping that option in place...while still advancing the art.

Jeff,

So much waxing poetic about "standing in a river" or "lay fallow in the field".  That wasn't my point nor what I said in any of my comments. I totally understand the need for change and managed long term multi-year developement strategies for a really not too small a company. Simply, again, there comes a responsibility to present that change in as non-disruptive a manner as possible, and that was my only point. So, let's take the PV (and maybe this was possible, plausible or not).. I'm glad that both are there (just like 2003 was there in LR3). I'm not sure I'm thrilled with some issues of going back and forth, but while related to this, not necessarily where I'm going.  If it were possible, it "might" have been better if there was a bridge to 2012 vs. an either/or situation. Sometimes that level of change cannot be accomodated, sometimes with additional thought, it can. Somewhere in Adobe, I'm hoping someone is thinking about the longer term strategies for LR and PS, ACR, etc.. I'm hoping they're not just thinking about what's the next tinker they want to add to the next version regardless of future directions and toward THAT end, one of the considerations is the user's experience with regard to performance, reliability, consistency, etc.

I'll also say Adobe, for the most part, has done an excellent job with LR (putting some performance issues aside for a moment) and again, as I said, as a product matures, one of the things to consider is how to introduce change without disruption, as best and wherever possible. EOL

Jay S.

[Todd Shaner]

I feel your pain. LR 1.0 started with fairly straightforward Basic tools in its Develop module, which have pretty much carried over unchanged into LR 2 and LR 3 version. LR 4 is definitely a bold departure from the familiar Develop tools, and for this reason alone it's understandable why so many people are objecting to the new PV2012 Develop module in LR4.

So what could Adobe done instead? They could have launched LR 4 with the same Develop tools slightly enhanced, with new Map and Book modules, but providing only marginally better image quality. No question this would have caused most professional LR users to criticize Adobe for catering to the amateur photography market simply to make more money. Having worked as a computer system design engineer for 20 years and then another 25 years in sales & marketing positions, I’ve seen many bad business decisions made concerning product features and product pricing. IMHO–Adobe has taken a bold but necessary step by departing from the “original” LR Develop tools to make LR a better tool for professional photographers.

There is no question that migrating images to LR 4 from previous LR versions is going to be challenging, and I believe this is where we should all be focusing our talent, time and energy. If you truly feel the benefits in LR 4 are out-weighed by the time required to use and/or learn the new tools, then stick with PV2010 in LR 4, or use LR3 and wait for LR 5. This in fact may be the best solution for people who process 100s or even 1,000s of images daily in their business practice, at least until the Adobe community has established some good migration techniques and LR 4 tool usage to speed the processes. I am sure Adobe is listening and will offer migration and productivity improvements to LR 4 in future update releases.

I’m still taking this one-day-at-time and processing only new shoot images in LR 4 with PV2012, as I understand it there is an issue when migrating LR 3 catalogs to LR 4 concerning Tone Curve adjustments:

http://feedback.photoshop.com/photoshop_family/topics/lr4_deleted_all_my_tone_curve_adjustments

Until this apparent bug is corrected by Adobe I won’t be importing my LR 3 catalog into LR 4, and I suggest others should investigate if this may create issues when importing their catalogs. That said, I love the improvement to both highlight and shadow detail that PV2012 produces. I look forward to getting more experience with the new Develop tools, and useful tips right here in the Adobe Lightroom forums on ways to speed up conversion of existing images from PV2010 to PV2012…..once this bug has been fixed.

BTW – I’m seeing only very minor performance differences with LR 4 using my Windows 7 64 bit system with Intel i7-860 quad core processor and 12 GB RAM.

[shamus1585]

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 .

[dhphoto2012]

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

[areohbee]

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

[Guest · Accepted solution]

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]

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

[christianbobak]

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.

[Jeff Schewe]

christianbobak wrote:

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

PV2010 is the control set from LR3, PV2012 is the updated and imporived control set. If you really don't want to get the benefit of PV 2012, you can keep using PV2010. Course, it's your loss as the new controls are much improved (if you spend the time to learn them).

[christianbobak]

Jeff, do you mean I can switch from "PV2012" to "PV2010" within Lightroom 4?

[areohbee]

christianbobak wrote:

...do you mean I can switch from "PV2012" to "PV2010" within Lightroom 4?

See the Camera Calibration section in the Develop Module - Process :

Continuing to use PV2010 may be a good way to cope during the transition, but once you learn PV2012, you'll never want to go back to PV2010, except maybe for special cases...

Just my opinion - not pushin' ...

Rob

[DdeGannes]

There are some very good free tutorials at the link posted below that explain the new features in LR 4. Its worth having a look

http://tv.adobe.com/product/lightroom/

[christianbobak]

With all due respect Jeff and DdeGannes, I don't need a tutorial on the new features and have no problem with them. The problem is that three features were taken away, two of which I use all the time. I need the old features back. I've already switched back to 3 and have no interest in returning to 4. I want to uninstall it and get my money back.

[christianbobak]

Can I uninstall Lightroom 4 and get a refund? I knew 30 seconds in that I was unhappy with the product. I like the spot noise reduction but not at the expense of two features I use all the time and are very important to me.

[Lee_Jay]

christianbobak wrote:

Can I uninstall Lightroom 4 and get a refund? I knew 30 seconds in that I was unhappy with the product.

No, you didn't.  If you knew that 30 seconds it your judgement was not sound.

[areohbee]

Christian,

You have to climb the hill to get the view from the summit...

Lr4 has been tricky to learn for me, and some other folk too. Like you, I/we did a lot of kicking and screaming during the transition period.

But for the vast majority of photos now, the results are truly better than what I can do with Lr3 (fill & recovery and everything else), and achievable faster - without the tone curve in more cases. I confess I do use the new locals regularly since it's so much easier to target highlight or shadow tone now, and for spot "declarification", and color balancing gradients...

I grant you that there are some photos and for some effects, PV2010 is still the prefered tool. For me, I just use PV2010 in those cases (actually, I usually don't - but I could, and on rare occasions I do...)

If you don't want to spend the time to learn the new tools, then I respect that decision. But I can't help but feel it would be a shame...

PS - I'm not a Lightroom/Adobe defender, but I am a lover of PV2012 .

Cheers,

Rob