Why "0" should be Zero

[TK2142]

Hi,

for those who didn't see the point of starting from neutral develop settings (in the respective LR4 discussions), watch this demonstration by Michael Frye (<- this is a link).

He nicely shows how starting from non-neutral develop settings does not suit some images at all and that these images require undoing all default develop settings before proper editing can start. I hope the demonstration shows the sceptics as to why neutral RAW develop settings can be useful.

I'll try to edit my camera profiles with the DNG profile editor once LR4 has developed to a point when it becomes usable. Hopefully, this will work as desired. However, I still think that no one should be required to jump through such hoops only to get a neutral develop setting. Setting sliders to "0", where "0" means zero, should be all that is required. Everyone else, who wants to start with some default contrast and other enhancements, should see those enhancements reflected in the slider settings.

The curve in the camera profile should just compensate any deviations of the camera from a desired norm. It should not implement someone's idea of a useful starting point for RAW editing.

[Bill_Janes]

Jeff Schewe wrote:

TK2142 wrote:

If you still disagree with me, you don't have to tell me again.

The only point I would still argue is that there's a reason Eric said what he said...if you don't first set the overall tone in Exposure then you're working on an image whose overall tone is wrong. Exposure and Contrast first does set up Highlights and Shadows nicely making Whites and Blacks being relegated to fine tuning (or jumping to Curves).

Note, I don't think Curves use (point or parametric) has been eliminated, but I think the need to go to curves has been reduced...

I agree that it makes sense get exposure right before proceeding to other corrections, but the behavior of exposure is different in PV2012 from PV2010. In PV2012 the black and white points are automatically set (within limits), and my current understanding is that one would use exposure to set the midtones. In PV2012, the exposure slider targets the midtones as shown on the LR histogram, but it is essentially a linear operator if recovery is not being performed and it also affects the highlilghts. One could then direct attention to the highlights to extract maximum tonality.

In your previous LuLa ACR tutorial Thomas Knoll reported that when editing images (that would be with PV2010), he first sets the white point with exposure. The midtones might then need a correction with brightness. He stated that an alternate method would be to set the midtones with exposure, and then the white point with recovery. This alternate method appears to be needed in PV2012 since there is no brightness slider. The highlight slider does affect the midtones to some extent, but it operates mainly in the highlight region as its name indicates. Your comments would be welcome.

[TK2142]

Bill_Janes wrote:

In your previous LuLa ACR tutorial Thomas Knoll reported that when editing images (that would be with PV2010), he first sets the white point with exposure. The midtones might then need a correction with brightness.

I understand the "Exposure" slider in PV 2012 is more akin to PV 2010 "brightness" than PV 2010 "exposure". Hence the equivalent of the above suggested approach in PV 2012 is to first set the white point with "Whites" and then use "Exposure".

If white point is off, I don't quite see the point of using PV 2012 "Exposure" to move it slightly but mainly increase brightness with a resulting loss in contrast in the highlights.

[areohbee]

Y'all need to be careful about applying legacy thinking to PV2012.

e.g. Highlights slider sometimes pulls the white point down more than the whites slider, and sometimes not.

PV2012 is not a deterministic thing that you can apply formulaic editing procedures to.

Best to be loose and use the sliders as they work best on the image you are editing...

That's been my experience anyway. Otherwise you'll find you have a fight on your hands when you edit images where the previous "formula" doesn't work so well...

Neither whites nor exposure sets the white-point... - they work with highlights as a team to set the upper end toning...

exposure & contrast & highlights & whites mostly determine upper end toning

exposure & contrast & shadows & blacks mostly determine bottom end toning

exposure & contrast mostly determine midtoning.

Note the common ingredients - exposure and contrast are critical to midtoning, upper and bottom end toning, thus they must be right on the money to get proper tone in all three regions.

Of exposure & contrast, exposure is the most critical to proper tone levels, since contrast does not alter midtone level, but exposure does.

Whether you set exposure first, or whites, or both together - be sure to revisit both before you're done...

Note: In PV2010 I used a "debrightened" version of Adobe Standard as default (created with DNG Profile Editor) - aimed at preserving highlight detail as much as possible.

In PV2012, I usually use +whites -exposure.

I think Adobe likes midtones to be brighter than me (and brighter than Nikon & Canon like them, judging from the difference in Adobe Standard versus the camera matching profiles).

+whites -exposure in PV2012 has some of the same effect as the debrightening tone curve in the DNG profile - drops midtone level and enhances highlights.

Rob

[Lee_Jay]

Rob Cole wrote:

PV2012 is not a deterministic thing that you can apply formulaic editing procedures to.

Of course it's deterministic and formulaic.  It's just that those forumlae may be a bit less intuitive to follow, especially in edge/extreme cases.

[areohbee]

Lee Jay,

I'm trying to share my experience of what works best for me, in case it might help somebody find what works best for them.

Rather than taking one thing out of context and claiming that it's wrong, why don't you share what works best for you too?

What I meant by that comment (in previous post) is: In my experience, due to the way PV2012 adapts the slider behavior for each image, and re-adapts the slider behavior again when I change exposure... that it pays to be flexible and not assume... Although PV2012 is totally deterministic to Eric Chan, for some of us, a successful procedure for editing one image does not always make for a successful formula to edit the next image...

PS - Your edge/extreme cases may be other people's every-day shots...

Rob

[Lee_Jay]

I have.

Defaults are Adobe Standard, Clarity +10, Vibrance +5, Sharpening 40, Masking 40, L-NR 40, Detail 80, C-NR 25.

Set WB.

If the image needs fill, use my fill-light presets.

Adjust exposure, then fiddle with +shadows and -highlights until things are about right.  If the exposure was set correctly, the two numbers will be the same but opposite in sign.  If they aren't, adjust exposure.

Use locals if necessary.  Done.

In difficult cases, use whites, blacks, and maybe tone curve.

[TK2142]

Lee Jay wrote:

Adjust exposure, then fiddle with +shadows and -highlights until things are about right.  If the exposure was set correctly, the two numbers will be the same but opposite in sign.  If they aren't, adjust exposure.

Interesting that you should use the term "fiddle".

In any event, you do not seem to have images that require more sophisticated adjustments. If your approach worked for everything then Adobe should have provided just one "shadows/highligts" slider to be adjusted in conjunction with "exposure". It does not make sense to allow different values for "shadows" and "highlights" when the best setting always requires them to have the same value anyhow.

[Lee_Jay]

TK2142 wrote:

Lee Jay wrote:

Adjust exposure, then fiddle with +shadows and -highlights until things are about right.  If the exposure was set correctly, the two numbers will be the same but opposite in sign.  If they aren't, adjust exposure.

Interesting that you should use the term "fiddle".

In any event, you do not seem to have images that require more sophisticated adjustments. If your approach worked for everything then Adobe should have provided just one "shadows/highligts" slider to be adjusted in conjunction with "exposure". It does not make sense to allow different values for "shadows" and "highlights" when the best setting always requires them to have the same value anyhow.

I do, but they are rare.  A good 90+% of my images can be satisfactorily adjusted using this basic approach.  Every once in a while I have a pathological case that needs more fiddling.

I'm not going for "effect", I'm going for "realistic".  PS is the effects tool.

[TK2142]

Rob Cole wrote:

Best to be loose and use the sliders as they work best on the image you are editing...

Isn't that called "fiddling"?

I prefer controls that achieve predictable results, independently of image content. I prefer adjustments to be based on simple low level data manipulation, like a true exposure slider that simply undoes a camera exposure compensation (without trying to help me with built-in highlight and shadow shoulders).

I'm fine with advanced adjustment operators, e.g., those that build masks but they should be predictable in their effect and allow intuitive control rather than forcing one to go back and forth and back and fourth between four to five sliders, always guided by visual feedback rather than knowing what should happen.

Yeah, I could stay with PV 2010 but what about the other extras (e.g., regarding the adjustment brush) that only come with PV 2012? Too bad that Adobe does not allow a "Picasa" style basic control panel (the current PV 2012) and "technical" basic control panel as alternatives (both using the same PV but catering to different audiences).

P.S.: I have just read that LR 4.1 RC2 has added new "Defringe controls". Isn't that a violation of the "UI freeze" policy?

[areohbee]

PV2012 allows one to tone most photos nicely, from end to end, without using the tone curve, using only 6 sliders. That would have been very hard to do without the image adaptive behavior. I'm not disagreeing with you, merely reminding why PV2012 is how it is (slider count and names were dictated from above, but how they behaved was left to developer).

PS - PV2012 requires a lot less fiddling if:

* You don't use blacks & whites sliders much

* Your toning tastes are aligned with what PV2012 does without blacks & whites sliders.

* You are willing to sacrifice midtone contrast to fill shadows and have highlight detail.

blacks & whites are critical to almost every photo, for me.

I often have -highlights with same value as +shadows, but the flexibility to have them different is critical, especially for shots where abnormal exposure will be set, since it's a primary determiner of the partition of effect between shadows and highlights sliders, and also one may simpy want midtone level to be proportionally lower or higher for some photos..., or highlights, or shadows...

As the avid forumers already know, I'm a huge fan of PV2012 - not because of how straight-forward it is, but because of the results I've been able to get *after* paying my dues...

Rob

[areohbee]

TK2142 wrote:

LR 4.1 RC2 has added new "Defringe controls".

Awesome!

"UI freeze" policy

I'm not a fan of a UI freeze policy - glad they made an exception...

R

[SeanMcCormack]

X.1 versions have had feature additions before. It's X.2 and beyond that are camera/lens profile additions and bug fix versions.

[TK2142]

Seán McCormack wrote:

X.1 versions have had feature additions before. It's X.2 and beyond that are camera/lens profile additions and bug fix versions.

Thanks for clarifying, Seán.

Jeff Schewe mentioned a good while earlier that all discussions that would imply UI changes would be moot because of UI freeze (e.g., for book authors).

[SeanMcCormack]

That's true for the X.0 release certainly. My own (well out of date) Lightroom 2 book had a 6 month print time after final edit.

[Jeff Schewe]

TK2142 wrote:

Jeff Schewe mentioned a good while earlier that all discussions that would imply UI changes would be moot because of UI freeze (e.g., for book authors).

That related to the public beta of 4.0 relative to the GM retail release of 4.0. As long as Adobe can ship new features or functionality within the quater that the app shipped,new features can be added. But that is not true between the public beta and the .0 releases...

[areohbee]

Hi TK,

I don't have much of an opinion about the '0' points.

But have you created the lowered contrast DNG profile yet?

That's a good solution for the "linear" tone curve being contrastier in PV2012.

In fact, it's a good solution for anytime you want a different tonal starting point, since that way you don't have to start with a bunch of points already on the curve.

But note: the tone curve in the profile does not provide the input to the basic sliders - they operate on the raw data the same way regardless of the tone curve in the profile. It's more like it sits between the basic sliders and the tone curve control in Lightroom, so to speak (or maybe "under" the Lightroom tone curve...). Anyway, one can not use a DNG profile to alter the behavior of the basic sliders, only to get a head start on tonal adjustment via the Lightroom curves, or obviate the need for it...

Regarding blacks & whites:

----------------------------------

- Not always a good idea to do them first, but not always a good idea to leave them till last either. The sliders in PV2012 are like a team - I rarely adjust one without adjusting one or more (or all) the others too, up until the last adjustment I mean . Like all other PV2012 sliders, blacks & whites sometimes only need small tweaks (or none), but sometimes they need big ones. They are really not the same as setting black/white point as in days of old...

The original conception and intent may have been for fine-tuning, but that does not always pan out in practice, - not for me.

PV2012 rocks! (except when it doesn't ).

Cheers,

Rob