P: Make curves bigger

[Whitney Dunn]

It would be great if the curves panel in Lightroom was physically bigger. The current panel is too small. While it's easy to make big adjustments, fine tuning is difficult and imprecise. I've attached two screenshots showing the curves panel for Lightroom (LR 4 beta) and Aperture (3.2.2) for the same image. In Lightroom, I've selected a medium contrast curve; in Aperture, I've used the "auto" curve option. Physically, the Lightroom curve panel itself measures 160 pixels per side. The Aperture one is 260 pixels per side, 60% bigger linearly, and three times the area! (67,500 pixels versus 25,600.)Aperture's bigger curves panel gives three big advantages:-- it's easier to see the changes, particularly in relation to the linear slope;-- it's easier to make changes, particularly precise ones; and-- it's easier to either select a current point or make a new one without accidentally doing the opposite.I'd also say a bigger panel encourages you to use it: just grab a point and yank it, without worrying that you have to be pixel precise.

[Anthony.Ralph]

You can already drag the left-hand side of the panel to make it larger. Any larger and the image being developed would be unacceptably small surely?

Anthony.

[dorin_nicolaescu]

The problem is, a bigger panel does not make the curve bigger. It stays at its fixed size.

[Anthony.Ralph]

True. Point well made. I've clicked the +1 button.
A.

[Whitney Dunn]

Like Dorin says, making the panel bigger doesn't make the curve box itself bigger.

Also, Lightroom leaves too much free space between the box and the panel. The panel here is reasonably sized, but the curves box takes up just over half the width. Compare that to Aperture. The box there is pushed right to the margins. That's a much more efficient use of space. Since the panel gives it to you, why not use it?

[billww]

Yes!

[jonathandemoor]

I would definitely like to see this, much more fine control of the curve would be great

[Anthony.Ralph]

This has been answered in LR4.1RC2

Anthony.

[Lee_Jay]

Where? Mine doesn't scale with panel width.

[Anthony.Ralph]

When you drag the right-hand panel in LR4.1RC2, the histogram elongates left-to-right, panorama-like. This is different to the behaviour, in earlier versions where the actual histogram box stayed unaltered, even though the panel widened. I appreciate it doesn't get any taller, but that isn't as critical is it?

Anthony.

[Lee_Jay]

We're talking about the curves control, not the histogram.

[jonathandemoor]

We're not talking about the histogram at the top, we mean the curves "input box" in the Tone Curve panel, which does not scale with the sidebar (even in 4.1 RC2), rather it stays as a small square floating in the middle of the panel

[Whitney Dunn]

Anthony, maybe you're thinking of the fix in Lightroom 4.1 RC1 that allows point curves from Lightroom 3 to migrate over properly? If so, that's very different from the request here, which is to enlarge the curve box itself.

FYI, here are the release notes for LR 4.1 RC1: http://blogs.adobe.com/lightroomjourn...

[Rikk-Flohr]

You guys didn't hear Kelby on the Grid this week? Curves are dead!

Back to the problem: while not what you are asking for, you know that you can get greater precision by holding down the [Alt/Opt] key while dragging and reduce curve movement to 1/10th strength? It is no substitute for a larger interface but it might help.

[Anthony.Ralph]

Yes, I misunderstood; the curves control has not changed, just the histogram box.

To err is human they say...

Anthony.

[Steve Gandy]

"...holding down the [Alt/Opt] key while dragging and reduce curve movement to 1/10th strength..."

Well, that helps but I want a bigger curve as well! I thought LR was tested with photographers...how did this little tiny curve make it thru to the gold master? I don't get it.

[stefanm8598159]

Would be helpful to hav eit bigger!. I know it scalable from e. g. GIMP - much easier to work with.

[stefanm8598159]

I ́m very satisfied with Lightroom 4.3.
One feature I ́d like to see changed: please make the tone curve paneel bigger or better scalable for mor precision.

Thank you
Stefan

[areohbee]

There may be a plugin for this, but it looks not yet finished:

http://www.capturemonkey.com/curvemon...

[FeedbackCommunityMember]

LR 5.4 now and still the curves panel is too small. I just don't understand it: Camera Raw can do it, Photoshop can do it, Aperture can do it. This must annoy many professionals as well. The panel is already wide enough, even when dragged all to the right to make it as small as possible. All that needs to be done is to make the curve display larger in height as well. Totally uncritical form a design point of view as the panel is already quite lengthy vertically...This is probably two lines of code.. Please!

Thanks,
Daniel

[davidnaylor83]

Just want to add my vote for this. Working with camera-scanned negatives, the curves panel is very important in getting the colours right. A larger box would go a long way.

[FeedbackCommunityMember]

Another vote for this! I don't see any reason why the box shouldn't go to the edge of the panel.
Since there is no opacity, it makes fine tuning in curves next to impossible

[areohbee]

Bigger would be better, but alt key makes fine tuning more possible.

[maxm75221265]

Please make the Point Curve window in the Tone Curve Panel larger or give us the option to make it larger. As trying to make incremental adjustments in that little window is very hard.

peace

[maxm75221265]

Wow,

This topic dates 4 years back!

How hard can it be to make a panel larger.

Seriously Adobe!

[FeedbackCommunityMember]

In the Lightroom Tone Curve panel, the graphic seems unnecessarily narrow considering the potential width of the panels themselves. From what I can tell, the graphic is limited to a square shape of constant width/height. In making restoration edits to scanned slides and film images, I rely HEAVILY on the tone curve adjustments to correct the images for fading, incorrect filter use during capture, etc. Unless these corrections are made using tone curves, white balance is not effective in restoring the colors of the original capture to life-like condition. I consider the channel-specific tone curve adjustment to be one of the most valuable tools in Lightroom for image restoration work.

As currently implemented, however, using the tone curve together with the histogram is less than fully effective. Since the histogram and tone curve graphic are of different widths, one must extrapolate the x-axis location on the histogram where the image needs correction to a different x-axis location on the tone curve. This situation could be easily remedied by making the width of the tone curve graphic adjust to the width of the overall panel (as the histogram already does on-the-fly), so that the tone curve graphic is always the same width as the histogram. Then, the point on the tone curve line is easily selected since it lines up immediately below the point on the histogram needing adjustment. This would require the targeted adjustment tool icon to be moved out of the way, but there seems to be sufficient room below the tone curve box, next to the "Channel: " label to relocate it. Unless for some reason the tone curve graphic must be square, there should be no need to increase the height of the tone curve graphic, avoiding making the tone curve panel take up more space.

I admit, this is not a big problem, but the solution is both simple and elegant, and would be an incremental improvement to Lightroom for the work I do.

Thanks for all you do!