Tonal Adjustments in Lightroom 4

[BarbaraArmstrong]

Helpful, "illuminating" piece on Tonal Adjustments in Lightroom 4.  Numerous gems of insight and deeper understanding of what we are doing with these adjustment tools. Many thanks to L-L and Charles Cramer.  --Barbara

[eleanorbrown]

Incredibly helpful and brilliantly written article by Charlie Cramer. Thanks!! Eleanor

[aduke]

I, too, found the article very illuminating and expect it to be very useful.

Alan

[MarkL]

Excellent article, just what I needed rather than crashing around with the new process version in LR4.

[mpegger2]

I've been holding off putting LR4 into production until I had a better understanding of the Tonal Adjustment changes in Process 2012. This is an excellent tutorial for the improvements to that workflow. I think I'm ready to get with the new program now. Thanks.

John Blakney

[JohnBrew]

Thanks, Charlie! I have Charlie's workshop book so I'll add these pages to it and consider myself good to go.

[E.J. Peiker]

Pretty much everything in the article applies to CS6's version of Camera Raw, ACR 7.x as well (as it should)

[dreed]

"Open up the shadows, and the highlights get compressed."

For me, THIS is what is wrong with curves. Whilst I understand the role it plays, I've never understood why I can't make everything to the left or right of a point on the curve fixed in place and just move another part of it. There's no reason why the entire image needs to be represented by just one curve and to an extent, I get the feeling that the sliders attempt to deliver that.

I wonder if it makes sense to be able to adjust the range of tones over which those sliders operate on?

[Schewe]

I wonder if it makes sense to be able to adjust the range of tones over which those sliders operate on?

You can with Parametric Curves, with the Point Curve editor you can't and there's a reason, the bezier nature of the point curve editor means that for every action the power curve makes a smooth adjustment and there's a point (pun not intended) where adding points and making adjustments looses precision. Photoshop Curves allows one to make an arbitrary curve using the pencil function. But it's very, very unforgiving to photos so wasn't included in ACR/LR. For really precise point curve edits in ACR/LR you really need at least 4 and up to 10 points to edit. Many of the points are really holding points to cut down on the bezier nature of the curve.

Also note that the Curves (both editors) occurs AFTER the demosaicing and Basic panel adjustments. If you want the goodness of PV 2012, you need to use the Basic panel to do the main adjustments and use the curves for fine tuning instead of the major moves.

[ErikKaffehr]

Hi,

Yes I agree. I'd just add that Michael had an interview with Charlie Cramer on LLVJ where they talk about photography and the than new P45, a likable interview with a very likable man.

Best regards
Erik

Incredibly helpful and brilliantly written article by Charlie Cramer. Thanks!! Eleanor

[wolfnowl]

Wonderful article.  Have passed along the link to others.

Mike.

[vjbelle]

One of the best articles I have ever read on LL.  Lots of practical information with detailed 'how to' examples.  Very well done. 

Victor

[francois]

100% useful and easily understandable article.
Thanks!

[Hans Kruse]

Great article and would like more like this one.

[stamper]

I wasn't sure if you needed to use the tone curve after understanding how to use the basic sliders. This article explains why. very good and informative.

[Eric Myrvaagnes]

One of the best articles I have ever read on LL.

It certainly is. Let's have more by Charlie Cramer!

[hcubell]

Very insightful article. What I would like to see is a full fledged Photoshop/Lightroom/Fine Art Printing Video Tutorial by MR and Charles Cramer that covers the material of Charley's Fine Art Printing Workshops.

[stamper]

And what about Jeff? You don't like his shirts?

[Walt Roycraft]

Adding my thanks to Charlie Cramer for an excellent article.
Very helpful!