P: Blend with Original Feature

[Zed 248]

Hi there!

In the awesome Lr Classic I often use the Auto Settings feature. Great starting point for further edits or one-click solution to get perfect result. But sometimes are the new settings simply too strong and I would like to  slide the settings back, lets say 60%. 

Instead of pulling all the 10 top-most sliders half-way to the left (and of course I move them approximately, because multiplying all the 10 numbers by 0.6 would take ages), it would be great to have one General Slider to controll all the main sliders back to zero.

So if you set Exposure to +1, Contrast to +50 and Highlihgts to -10, the General Slider would be 100. By sliding General Slider to 50, you would set Exposure to +0.5, Contrast to +25 and Highlights to -5.

Or simply, like a virtual layer on the top, just one slider for everything (not just for Basic sliders): Blend with Original 0 — 100.

[JP Hess]

So, in your situation, if you often find yourself using those specific adjustments instead of Auto adjustments then perhaps you could create a preset using those adjustments and apply that preset.

[Zed 248]

Thanks for your reply Jim! You are right — when saving current settings as a Preset I can control its overall amount. (So the core of the idea has been already introduced in Lr.)

However making preset for each photo would result in infinite quantity of them. In my opinion the Presetet library should be as slim as possible and it shouldn't be just workaround in standard editing process.

Sometimes photos feels a bit overtuned when you look at it next day. Too perfect, too contrasty, etc. Having one slider to control everything in single click could be helpful (without making preset for each case you want to tune down a bit).

[JP Hess]

Then apparently I don't understand your situation. If you want one slider that will move everything to specific settings as you indicated in your original post, why wouldn't ONE preset with those specific settings work for many images? If you are saying that there are different settings then that is something I did not understand.

[Zed 248]

Sorry, I probably overcomplicated my explanation. 

Blend with Original describes my idea in short and simple form.

When you apply Auto Setings on 10 different photos, you get 10 different adjustments, depending on conditions of each image. Auto Setting — as you know — slides the sliders in Basic section, sometimes pretty wildly. When you like the easy auto-adjustment but it feels a bit strong (which in my case usually does), you have to move 10 sliders halfway hack to get half of the Auto Settings. 10 sliders multiplied by 10 photos means 100 clicks & drags.

One slider Blend with Original would do it pretty easy, without messing with Presets: Ctrl + U (perform Auto Settings) + Blend with Original to tame it a bit.

What do you think?

[John R Ellis]

While waiting for Adobe to implement this, you might check out this plugin:

http://regex.info/blog/lightroom-goodies/bag-o-goodies#personalized-auto-tone

[Zed 248]

Thank you johnrellis, it looks great!