LR4 highlight/shadow sliders or tone curve

Hi all....

Just wondering if anyone uses the highlight/whites/shado​ws/blacks sliders under the auto tune or the tone curve under these?

Are these the essentially the same things or is there a major difference?

Would you use both and why?

So many questions.....
Cheers
Phil

Personally I use the sliders, and I think they are the best thing since sliced bread, as they say. In the past I would need to spend ages playing with curves and the basic sliders to get the results I was looking for. Now I can achive that in seconds with Highlights / Shadows. Actually for what I like to shoot the hardest settings to absolutly nail are white balance and the white point. Everything else I will know what it needs or (black point) is a case of winding the histogram to the point that I know it will need to be.

I have yet to have a play with the curves tools, I usually just leave it oneither the linear or medium contrast defaults.

Alan

check out this. the best explanation I have seen of the tonal adjustments in LR 4.

Yeah I think it will take me quite a bit of reading before I fully understand it....have been playing with some dune photos I took yesterday and there wasn't a great deal of tonal range so I used both...but think I have managed to wing it....

Hmmmm...not really sure how to save a sharper version for the 150kb size limit yet either!!!

In LR4 I spend most times adjusting the sliders and the results are good enough that I don't need the tone curve.

However, the tone curve is still quite useful for adjusting a small range of tones that might be too broad for the sliders

Stone 13 wrote in post #15060969
However, the tone curve is still quite useful for adjusting a small range of tones that might be too broad for the sliders

Do you mean the tonal range you want to adjust is too narrow for the sliders broad adjustments and that you are able to make more detailed and controlled adjustments to a specific range withour affecting other tones using the curves. Or do you mean the opposite?

I don't understand the intent when you say "a small range of tones" and then continue to say that the small range is "too broad".

sorry if I wasn't clear:

The sliders are very good at separating highlights, shadows, etc. But at times, I might want to for example adjust a very small range of highlight tones that are only a subset of the tones that are covered by the highlights slider. I'll use a custom point curve to zero in on those tones while leaving the rest of the tones that would normally be impacted by the highlights slide alone.

I generally use the sliders to set the exposure, black point, and white point. I go back and forth between sliders as each slider affects the tonal range in the neighboring sliders tonal range to some extent.

After I get the "envelope" of my histogram where I want it I move down to the tone curve to adjust the contrast and move things around within the envelope created by the sliders.

Sometimes I need to go back to the sliders after the curves adjustment to get things just how I want them.

Stone 13 wrote in post #15061025
sorry if I wasn't clear:

The sliders are very good at separating highlights, shadows, etc. But at times, I need to, for example adjust very small range of highlight tones that might only be a subset of the tones covered by the highlights slider. I'll use a custom point curve to zero in on those tones while leaving the rest that would normally be impacted by the highlights slide alone.

Thats what I thought. Very similar to my workflow.

crackennz wrote in post #15060122
Hi all....

Just wondering if anyone uses the highlight/whites/shado​ws/blacks sliders under the auto tune or the tone curve under these?

Are these the essentially the same things or is there a major difference?

Would you use both and why?

So many questions.....
Cheers
Phil

I use the sliders in the Basic panel (where the auto tone function is) for over all adjustment of the image. Next I use the tone curve for controlled contrast changes. I tend to adjust the Tone Curve directly rather than using the sliders underneath it. The Tone Curve is really meant for fine tuning I believe.

I start with the Basic sliders, and like others I fine tune in the Tone Curve if needed, but I do use the sliders there, although some times I use the curve "points". I've also gotten some good results using the Targetted Adjustment tool in the Tone Curve panel!

tonylong wrote in post #15075917
I start with the Basic sliders, and like others I fine tune in the Tone Curve if needed, but I do use the sliders there, although some times I use the curve "points". I've also gotten some good results using the Targetted Adjustment tool in the Tone Curve panel!

It funny, I was aware of the Targeted Adjustment Tone Curve tool and even played with it a couple of time when I was first teaching myself LR4. I didn't have any experience with the previous version of Lightroom and really had lots to learn. As a result, in the interim, I totally forgot about that function. Thanks for the reminder. I think I could use the Targeted adjustment to good effect.

Almost 100% of the time it's dropping the hightlights and bumping the shadows for me. I do more dodge and burn with the brush tool & use the ND filter, then use of the tone curve adjustment.

I have no idea on how to use the tone curve and what it refers to... can anyone point me in the direction of a tutorial?