Lumetri color Highlights and Shadows does not work as expected

[mangmangw]

Hello, I’m new to Premiere Pro, I used to adjust Highlights and Shadows in Lightroom to recover the details of the clouds and brighten the ground, but when I tried the Highlights and Shadows in Premiere Pro Lumetri color, the result is terrible, even with highlight -100, the clouds are still too bright, and the shadow doesn’t make the dark part bright enough, but it make the entire image gray, if I increase the contrast the image is less gray but it remake the clouds brighter and the ground darker. I tried different combinations, I tried the Curves and Color Wheels, can't get a satisfying result. I tried do the same in Davinci Resolve by adjusting Highlights, Shadows and contrast, I get a much better result. Can anyone tell me how to achieve the same result in PR please ? 

This is what I got in PR:

This is what I got in Davinci:

[R Neil Haugen]

This is where testing your tools with a ramp or chip chart is a Good Thing ... so you learn what they actually do, not what you think they do, or should do. Highly recommended everyone do that in any software. (And I noticed your Offset numbers in Resolve were 'up' ... I love the Offset myself, miss it in Premiere.)

Neither the Highlights nor Shadow controls in the Lumetri Basic tab move the end points. They only move the in-between pixels around. They both affect their "named" range more than elsewhere on the scale, but not nearly as "tightly" as most think they would.

So Highlights moves the upper light tones up or down mostly, but it will also have some effect on the mids and even the Shadows. Shadows is the opposite end ... moves the shadows up or down but also will have some affect to the mids and even the highlights.

NEITHER moves the end point of the scale. The black or white point.

Exposure going "up" moves things sorta like grabbing the point next to the white point ... sequentially. You don't ever get anything above the white point, it just brings more of the scale towards it. With a slight roll-off as it nears that 100 IRE line.

Contrast moves things out ... or in ... from the 50IRE point. Always. So anything above 50IRE goes up, anything below 50IRE goes down. With a roll-off as you approach the ends of the scale.

So for say manual normalization of log media, coordinating Exposure and Contrast is quick and effective. Use Exposure to move the data up or down so that when you add Contrast you move things out exactly to taste up and down. This is where a control surface is incredibly handy, as you can do both at the same time and really see how they react together.

The White control in the Basic tab, the RGB Curves right side end-point, and the Highlights luma control on the Color Wheels tab to change the white point.

The Color Wheels Shadow luma slider and the RGB Curves black point and the Blacks control in the Basic tab all change the black point.

But be careful with the Blacks slider ... it's like a swinging door anchored between 12 and 15 IRE, so adjust Basic Shadows where you want the 'general' shadows to be, and use the Blacks tool simply to 'trim' the black point a bit. Or use the other two tools that change black point.