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Question

Tone Curve vs. Basic Panel (LR 4.2)

Forum|Forum|13 years ago
October 14, 2012
2 replies
25530 views

I'm using LR 4.2 in a Windows 7 environment.

I'm trying to gain a deeper understanding how the four tonal sliders in the Tone Curve (Highlights, Lights, Darks, Shadows) compare or correspond to the four tonal sliders in the Basic Panel (Highlights, Shadows, Whites, Blacks) in terms of their impact on the image.

How do these relate, how do their differ? They seem to do sort of the same thing, but not quite.

Can anyone help me understand this better, or point me to a tutorial that does?

Thank you,
Robert Ades

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TheDigitalDog

Inspiring

Might want to start by viewing this excellent free video:

http://mulita.com/blog/?p=3945

Then George goes into exhustive detail about ALL the sliders and options using PV2012 (and more)

Author “Color Management for Photographers" & "Photoshop CC Color Management/pluralsight"

R

Robert Ades1Author

Participating Frequently

I actually have George Jardine's Develop series as well as the link above, which I have just gone back a re-watched. It was these tutorials that got me all confused in the first place. Here's why...

In this tutorial, http://mulita.com/blog/?p=3945, right at minute 15, he talks about the highlight control. Move the slider to the left and you increase edge definition or enhancement. But move it to the right and you increase contrast. These sound like the same thing. Because I associate edge definition wth clarity, I don't see how they're different. Further, I don't really understand (actually I don't understand at all) why moving the highlight control to the left has any effect at all on edge defintion.

areohbee

Legend

Thanks Rob, I'm digesting what you just wrote while also reading the Luminous-Landscape link from CSS Simon above.

So your take on the piece about increased edge definition is that it's probably related to highlight recovery?

And we can also boost midtone contrast w/o compressing the tops and bottom by simply brining Highlight and Shadow levers toward the middle of the tonal curve while increasing the contrast slider? Some of this is starting to make sense.

Just finished the Lu-La and I understand this better. Charles Cramer did a really nice job explaining the nuts and bolts behind the sliders.

-Robert

You're welcome. It may take a while before it becomes 2nd nature - it took me a while anyway.

Perhaps it's a common mistake to think if you want to bring down / recover the brightest highlights, you should use -whites, but often that is not the best course of action. This is one of the confusing aspects of PV2012:

* the purpose of the whites slider is ostensibly to affect the upper most tones only, yet it often affects the whole tone curve, more-so than the highlights slider.

As Jerry was sorta saying, sometimes when you think you should use -whites, what you really need is -highlights +whites (and -exposure if you need to make room, and +shadows if -exposure makes the bottom half too dark...).

PS - I don't think PV2012 is a good design from a user/usability point of view: i.e. it's not clear what to expect from the controls (even after reading the manual and experimenting some), but once you learn what to do with which control (or perhaps it would be better to say: "how to combine the controls to accomplish your objectives"), they are surprisingly flexible and capable of doing things very much not doable with the tone curve.

PV2012: stellar results, albeit a squiggly learning curve...

Enjoy,

Rob

areohbee

Legend

Unlike the tone curve, the basic sliders are backed by some intelligence, and it's possible to increase contrast in one region without a corresponding loss in contrast in another.

Best results are had by getting as close as possible using the basic sliders, then use the tone curve to fine tune if need be.

Rob

R

Robert Ades1Author

Participating Frequently

Thanks for the reply.

I think I understand the Tone Curve better than the basic sliders because I can see how the adjustments affect the curve. With the basic sliders, the chnages to the curve aren't shown -- reading contrast using just the histogram is more difficult. How do you judge changes in contrast using just the basic sliders?

Also, what do "whites" and "blacks" in the basic sliders correspond to in the tone curve?

areohbee

Legend

Whites & blacks correspond closest to moving the clipping points via the point curve (not the parametric tone curve). But, if I were you I would shy away from trying to draw too close a correspondence between basics and tone curve, and instead just learn to use the basic sliders by trial and error in conjunction with whatever learning aids you can find, including auto-tone (which goofs exposure but you can learn from what it does to the other sliders (in addition to exposure, you may also need to tweak blacks, and maybe even some of the rest...).

For example, the behavior of exposure changes when it starts to get very bright, and contrast is tied to exposure, and which tones are highlights and which shadows vary from photo to photo, and depend on exposure. Also, blacks & whites are ostensibly for defining the clipping points, but should not be used first, and have very different behaviors depending on which direction you pull them and the dynamic range of the photo...

PV2012 basics really rock, but can be tricky to learn - hang tough and enjoy...

More tips here:

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

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

Rob

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