"Always do everything in Basic first"

So... in regards to Camera RAW, I read a lot about following a certain order for this-and-that, and yes this is certainly not my first post here along those lines (I'm extremely OCD).

Something I hear pretty regularly is "Do everything in the Basic tab first, in the order it's listed, and then if necessary....." Now I've done this plenty of times, but there's something that just feels extremely tedious and cluttered about it. I understand that the Highlights target the right 2/3 of the histogram, the Shadows the left 2/3, the Whites are the extreme end of blah blah blah, I get it. They just all seem to work way too similarly to me, where for example sliding the Shadows and Blacks both seem to clip the blacks and crush the shadows at the same rate.

So here's what I did the other day, and I like it, and it's very quick and efficient for me; but before everyone responds by telling me to just do it if it works for me, I'm wondering in particular if I'm losing or sacrificing anything at all by using this method in terms of image quality or potential. So without further ado, here is my process (I already have other things in place, like capture sharpening and lens profiles--this is strictly about the "exposure" part of things):

1) Open image in ACR7
2) White Balance
3) Add a little contrast with Contrast slider (depending on image)
4) Set black and white points with Black and White sliders
5) Go to the Point Curve and basically adjust the whole image in terms of tonal and luminosity

I'm a Curves guy and always feel most at home using them. The Shadows and Highlights sliders are at 0 and don't get touched, and only the Exposure moves if the shot is moderately to severely off-exposed. Below is a recent picture I applied this approach to.

Thoughts?

Well, I myself am pretty active with the Highlight and Shadows sliders -- I am picky about getting as much detail as possible. I go light with the Contrast, enough to "taste", but not enough to push the shadows and highlights much. I actually get more use out of the Clarity adjustment. But that's my taste...I just use the Tonal Curve adjustments to "fine tune" if needed.

Highlights and Shadows do more than shifting tonality (brightness) in one direction or the other. They (and Clarity) also apply some very sophisticated Edge Detection processing. See:
http://blogs.adobe.com …al-laplacian-filters.html This is the great advance in LR4 - the improvements in LR3 over LR2 involved the conversion engine and NR, the new stuff in LR4 is Edge Detection and content driven slider functions in Exposure and Blacks. By-passing the Basic sliders and relying on the point curve alone, in effect turns LR4 into LR3.

Back in process 2010 that was very similar to the way I worked. With Process 2012 though I have moved the other way, and use the sliders more. I usually pick the "camera profile" first, as changing that has drastic effects on the outcome of the final image. As I expose to the right I bring the exposure down with the exposure slider. I then do the highlight/shadow recovery, which for what are generally very high contrast scenes usually go to -100/+100 first, then get fiddled from there. Then I go back to the exposure slider to set the mid tones. Then I set the black and white points to taste. I usually find that I do not need to add general contrast, but do add some clarity and vibrance. Often it is necessary to play with the Black/White points when adding clarity/vibrance as they do have an effect on the brightness, pushing out both ends.

This is one of the reasons that I like Process 2012 so much, you can compress a big dynamic range from the RAW file in to a JPEG or print, which would otherwise have needed two exposures, or at least 2 conversions, and without having to worry about making it look like a bad HDR. This is great for aviation as there is no way you can do two exposures with those sorts of subjects. Loads of both shadow and highlight detail.

Alan

RandMan, you might want to read this:
http://forums.adobe.co​m/message/4773152

Thanks for the replies--haven't read any of the links yet but will when I get home. What I am guessing is they are going to be about the sophisticated advancements in the new engine and its capabilities as was hinted at in above replies.

So do most of you only dip into the Curves if sliders in the Basic panel can't quite push the image as hard as you would like?

RandMan wrote in post #15729762
So do most of you only dip into the Curves if sliders in the Basic panel can't quite push the image as hard as you would like?

Well, that's one approach, although sometimes the curves are nice for "fine-tuning", especially some of the mid-tones.

Something I've never messed much with is the RGB curves -- I lean toward tweaking settings/sliders in the HSL panel.

Alas, one more question--with all the emphasis on setting a black and white point in a photograph and how nicely it contributes to contrast and color and stretching the image across the histogram (all of which I am a huge advocate and believer in by the way), why would these be left to the end as a "season to taste if desired" kind of thing? I even saw a video on KelbyTV once of Matt Kloskowski walking through the new sliders and he said that the black and white sliders you can typically just "leave alone" and rarely move from 0; he brushed through their explanation in a matter of seconds.

Now I'm no veteran pro photog, but isn't settings those points like making sure there's air in your tires before you go racing? As in default steps that you take along with, say, white balance, to get your image "where it needs to be" before going into more intricate adjustments? I just tend to think: set your white balance, set your black point, set your white point.... then you can start editing!

I know I'm hyper-analyzing, but this is what we do. We're members of a digital photography forum--face it; we're not like other civilians. We are..... geeks! Now embrace your chosen life and let's split some hairs.

I myself typically never mess with the Black and White sliders, along with what Matt said.

However, that's just me and my preference. I see others chime in who use them evidently often, it's part of their workflow...

By the way, RandMan, have you checked out our RAW Conversion Thread? It's full of some great projects that people have "shared" over the years.

Read the thread info, then scroll through, and when you see stuff you like, stop and check it out!

'Course most of it predates LR4/PV 2012, but hey, in the Raw world we've been having good times and it just keeps getting better!

tonylong wrote in post #15730494
By the way, RandMan, have you checked out our RAW Conversion Thread? It's full of some great projects that people have "shared" over the years.

Read the thread info, then scroll through, and when you see stuff you like, stop and check it out!

'Course most of it predates LR4/PV 2012, but hey, in the Raw world we've been having good times and it just keeps getting better!

Wow. I've always noticed this thread and never really stopped to do any "window shopping" until just now (I tend to live in the PP subforum). It's 3:00 a.m. and I'm laying in bed dreaming about dynamic range and edge definition so I have to try and get a few hours of shut-eye before work but I will definitely be spending A LOT of time there starting tomorrow.

Oh and judging by the ten minutes I just spent browsing there, I wouldn't exactly refer to it as "our thread." That masterpiece is all yours man!!! You started it and own it! Very well managed I must say.

-Randy

RandMan wrote in post #15730938
Oh and judging by the ten minutes I just spent browsing there, I wouldn't exactly refer to it as "our thread." That masterpiece is all yours man!!! You started it and own it! Very well managed I must say.

-Randy

Heh! It very quickly became "our" thread -- such a great bunch have chimed in!

RandMan wrote in post #15730437
Alas, one more question--with all the emphasis on setting a black and white point in a photograph and how nicely it contributes to contrast and color and stretching the image across the histogram (all of which I am a huge advocate and believer in by the way), why would these be left to the end as a "season to taste if desired" kind of thing?

We are..... geeks! Now embrace your chosen life and let's split some hairs.

Two reasons (for me). And again it is involved in the way that LR4 is different from everything that went before and especially from PS and similar pixel editors. Remember Auto Tone in old LR? It used to be a fast shortcut for identifying the darkest and lightest pixels and setting the white and black points. Well, now Exposure has some Auto Tone built in. When the LR4 Beta was first released a bunch of folks were pretty upset about that, because you get it whether you want to or not. Exposure is described as controlling midtones, but it is effing with the white point and highlights also and even doing some automatic highlight recovery. Now, a year and a half later, the opinion is firmly on the approval side. And although the gurus say that the automatic white point is enough, Adobe was smart enough to leave Whites in there for people whose personal taste/creativity isn't the same as the taste of the designers as enshrined in the algorithms.

At the other end there is something similar going on. Black used to be a fixed default value of 5. In LR4 the default position is called 0 to maintain uniformity with the other sliders, but that 0 does not represent a fixed value. There is also some automatic evaluation of the image content and 0 is the (recommended) black point. I guess that at this point I should reveal a method that I saw some place on the web, but don't remember where, tried, liked it and frequently use. In the Parametric curve I push the divider between the Shadows region and the Darks region, which is normally at 25, over to 10 and then set Shadows at -100. This steepens the curve in the 10-25 area, giving me more shadows contrast. Then I use the Blacks slider to tweak the black point. Also, positive Shadows (Basic) is wonderful, but at times it can go kind of flat, part of which can be offset with Clarity but I may also steepen the Parametric curve a bit with a little positive Darks.

I find the fact that the camera calibration tab's being buried as an afterthought is particularly disturbing. You could expose your image perfectly and not have to touch any of the basic sliders, but the calibration tab, along with white balance, controls how your image data are rendered from a raw file even in a perfectly exposed image. It is the redheaded stepchild of raw conversion, and deserves more respect. However, Adobe seem to think that Adobe Standard is enough, I guess. It is as if LR/ACR lets people know that they can control the conversion, but it is probably something that is too difficult to understand for most people.

This message paid for by the Friends of the Camera Calibration Tab. I approve this message.

kirk

For me I only use PSE and the ACR that is incorporated in it. I always heard shoot raw, shoot raw but until I started playing with ACR and saw some of the b4 and afters I just didn't do it.

So I am new to the Raw processing but I tend to adjust the Temp, then the Blacks and Whites, exposure then all the rest. Many times vibrance and sometimes contrast... then depending I adjust the sharpness and open it in PSE11, but that's just how I do it. Is there a standard way that's considered "correct" I would be very interested in learning it for sure.