Luminance slidder Lightroom 4

Luminance slidder in lightroom 4 who uses it, I started adding luminance and my pictures look better, well to me they look better.

Do you mean clarity?

jefzor wrote in post #16437766
Do you mean clarity?

No it's Luminance under Noise Reduction, but it seems to do about the same as Clarity.

I use Luminance NR and Color NR for every RAW image, varying the amounts by ISO (for jpegs I don't use any at all since it's already been applied by the camera). For ISO 200 with my D700 I might use Luminance = 8-10 and Color = 6. For a similar shot at ISO 3200 I might use Luminance = 28 and Color = 18.

With an image at 100% I start with Color and reduce chroma noise until any different colored speckles almost disappear. Don't overdo it. After that I increase Luminance NR until the image is reasonably noise free without losing important details.

Before doing NR I apply sharpening (for RAWs) and tend to use a bit of Masking, especially for images of people and landscapes with a lot of sky.

DigitalDon wrote in post #16438061
No it's Luminance under Noise Reduction, but it seems to do about the same as Clarity.

Are you kidding? They are almost complete opposites. NR blurs both noise and detail. Clarity, by increasing micro contrast, increases the definition of noise and detail.

I do set a little Luma NR for every shot, but only 3 up to ISO 800, 7 for 1600 and 15 for 3200, but I also do some rough grain for every shot. So I take away the noise and replace it with simulated film grain. I like grain for two reasons; it gives the illusion of 3D volume and it creates an impression of sharpness.

Regarding Chroma NR, Adobe says that the default 25 should be right for most photos. They have also dropped hints that the 25 is not an absolute value and the actual NR varies according to camera model and ISO.

tzalman wrote in post #16438346
Are you kidding? They are almost complete opposites. NR blurs both noise and detail. Clarity, by increasing micro contrast, increases the definition of noise and detail.

Okay learn something new everyday, all i know is if i move the clarity slidder to the left it gets the (only word i can think of is) dreamy look like slidding the Lum slidder right makes it dreamy looking to.

Bob_A wrote in post #16438117
I use Luminance NR and Color NR for every RAW image, varying the amounts by ISO (for jpegs I don't use any at all since it's already been applied by the camera). For ISO 200 with my D700 I might use Luminance = 8-10 and Color = 6. For a similar shot at ISO 3200 I might use Luminance = 28 and Color = 18.

With an image at 100% I start with Color and reduce chroma noise until any different colored speckles almost disappear. Don't overdo it. After that I increase Luminance NR until the image is reasonably noise free without losing important details.

Before doing NR I apply sharpening (for RAWs) and tend to use a bit of Masking, especially for images of people and landscapes with a lot of sky.

Thanks for the info
I usually start with Basic panel first and almost always turn down the Highlights, almost all the way down, then I will adjust Shadows to the right until I say to myself, Ok, there has to be shadows so I back off until I think the shadows look right, White and Black I watch the under/overexposure indicators for them.
then I play around with the Exposure a little and Contrast at about 10.

I then go to the Details panel and set Sharpening about half way, then I back off (to the left) the Radius slidder until it blurs, then slowly move to the right until I see it clear up a bit, usually around 1.7, The Detail slidder I will add just enought until I see some detail, I hardly ever use the Masking slidder. I haven't really used the Luminance until a few days ago and I noticed I could use more of the Sharpening and Detail slidders (more to the right) when I used the Luminance slidder.

Forgot to mention, I usually zoom to 1.1 or more on some of them

DigitalDon wrote in post #16438061
No it's Luminance under Noise Reduction, but it seems to do about the same as Clarity.

Oh, OK. That's one I'd leave at 0, unless you have a noise problem. And even then, 25 is as high as I'd want to go with it.

DigitalDon wrote in post #16438501
Okay learn something new everyday, all i know is if i move the clarity slidder to the left it gets the (only word i can think of is) dreamy look like slidding the Lum slidder right makes it dreamy looking to.

That's because to the left is negative Clarity

tzalman wrote in post #16438407
I do set a little Luma NR for every shot, but only 3 up to ISO 800, 7 for 1600 and 15 for 3200, but I also do some rough grain for every shot. So I take away the noise and replace it with simulated film grain. I like grain for two reasons; it gives the illusion of 3D volume and it creates an impression of sharpness.

Regarding Chroma NR, Adobe says that the default 25 should be right for most photos. They have also dropped hints that the 25 is not an absolute value and the actual NR varies according to camera model and ISO.

I usually add too much NR since an image is rarely viewed full size on a monitor and noise isn't as visible when printed. Adding grain is a nice trick though and certainly less NR is required when you use it. I had some horribly underexposed negatives that I scanned an was able to get a useable "memory" (not art, that's for sure) by using grain instead of increasing NR until the image was mush.

Adding too much chroma NR doesn't appear to wreck details as aggressively as too much luminance NR, so most of the time you could probably get away with 25. For my D700 I don't typically need that much though, so I dial it down.

I have yet been unable to SEE any difference between working very carefully to find the setting that will just remove the chroma noise and the LR default of 25, so it just stays on the default. Well actually I usually do my basic pannel adjustments with all NR and sharpening zeroed out, but a quick double click of the slider soon sets it back to default.

Alan

I typically leave the color/chrome LR at the default, because that setting doesn't seem to "harm" the images, and it does seem to do good with color noise!