Lightroom "Auto Tone" Issue

Sorry if this has already been covered somewhere here...I couldn't find anything related.

I'm starting to play around with Lightroom, learning how things work and have found that the "Auto Tone" function, both in the Library and Develop, pushes the brightness up considerably of the image (squishes the histogram much to the right), so much so that it looks blown out. I assume it works this way for everyone else? Fruitlessly I looked for something that might "calibrate" the Auto feature.
I'm not sure how much I'll ever use the Auto Tone function, but to me it should work in a similiar manner as the Auto functions in CS2 and produce a more balanced appearing image. I'm not simply missing something, am I?

I used it today for the first time and it seemed to work for me as you see CS2 functions work.

I found this in an Adobe forum http://www.adobeforums​.com/cgi-bin/webx/.3bc338c4 .
I guess it's a common problem.

I seem to be experiencing the same issue as well. I guess, we'll just have to wait for 1.1 release then? LoL

Yup, it does the same for me... and it seems to be a common issue.

Hola - my auto makes it go darker. andy.

Just like anything automated, there are certain bits it does really well, and others it does pretty badly. The settings it comes up with are basically the same as the old ACR settings.

For a start, it works far better on raw files than it does jpegs. And the black point auto is usually spot-on, but the overall exposure is largely dependent on the picture contents, as it's having to do everything mathematically (find the x % of the lightest area, and make it white, average the rest out to make it grey etc).

Workaround: If you find there's one slider you always change by the certain amount, remember it!

I have 2 presets I run on all the images. Auto Colour I run first - setting everything to their automatic settings. Then I run my second preset, which sets certain sliders (exposure, brightness, fill light etc) back to a default setting. If you general exposures are fairly consistent, it seems to be the best way of making use of the auto settings.

Odd, with Lightroom 1.1 it worked fine, now with 1.2 I am having this problem. With JPEG's it leaves all the settings at zero, but bumps up the brightness to +50 to +65.

That's all it will do, go crazy with the brightness.

Anybody else have this problem?

Wondering if anybody has come up with a solution for this...trying to figure out why my photos are at least a stop under in LR vs. other viewers....

Hurricane_777 wrote in post #4218002
Wondering if anybody has come up with a solution for this...trying to figure out why my photos are at least a stop under in LR vs. other viewers....

I run a preset on Import that seems to work just fine.

Open a pic in the develope module.
Set the desired settings you wish to use as "default".
Save those settings as a new prest.
Apply that preset on Import.

In2Photos wrote in post #4218133
I run a preset on Import that seems to work just fine.

Open a pic in the develope module.
Set the desired settings you wish to use as "default".
Save those settings as a new prest.
Apply that preset on Import.

Gotcha, and that certainly makes sense.

Let me start with a "thanks" because I've read a lot of your posts the last couple of days trying to figure this all out and they've been very helpful.

I guess I'm still sort of "stuck" in that I can view a jpg in Irfanview and it's properly exposed, look at the same image in lightroom and it's underexposed, and export from lightroom (using any of the 3 color spaces) open up in Irfanview and it's (again) properly exposed. It's seems clear to me that lightroom isn't necessarily "doing" anything in that process, but the shots still look under. When in lightroom, the autotone feature cranks the brightness up to anywhere between 40 and 75 to "correct" an exposure that's correct in every other app I've tried.

Is the difference I'm seeing just the difference between a color managed app and a non color managed app? Does this apply to exposure as well??? The colors are a bit different between the two, with LR producing a warmer cast...but the actual exposure values just seem too different to explain.

Thanks again....

Hurricane_777 wrote in post #4218446
Gotcha, and that certainly makes sense.

Let me start with a "thanks" because I've read a lot of your posts the last couple of days trying to figure this all out and they've been very helpful.

I guess I'm still sort of "stuck" in that I can view a jpg in Irfanview and it's properly exposed, look at the same image in lightroom and it's underexposed, and export from lightroom (using any of the 3 color spaces) open up in Irfanview and it's (again) properly exposed. It's seems clear to me that lightroom isn't necessarily "doing" anything in that process, but the shots still look under. When in lightroom, the autotone feature cranks the brightness up to anywhere between 40 and 75 to "correct" an exposure that's correct in every other app I've tried.

First, is your monitor calibrated? Does Irfanview use a dark background when displaying your photos? There are lots of people that have mentioned their omages look darker or brighter in LR that other apps and often times it comes down to background color. When I import a jpeg now everything is zero'd and I start from there. That is my "Import Starting Point" from which I then edit my images.

Is the difference I'm seeing just the difference between a color managed app and a non color managed app? Does this apply to exposure as well??? The colors are a bit different between the two, with LR producing a warmer cast...but the actual exposure values just seem too different to explain.

Thanks again....

Color managed apps vs non-color managed apps should not affect brightness (luminosity), only colors. If you are not aware LR uses Prophoto RGB as its color space so you have to be careful when you go outside of LR to work on an image. The colorspace will default to ProPhoto RGB during Export and by right-clicking and sending the image to an external editor. You can change this if you are sending it to a non-color managed app.

If you could post a screen shot of an image in LR next to the same image in Irfanview.

In2Photos wrote in post #4219180
First, is your monitor calibrated? Does Irfanview use a dark background when displaying your photos? There are lots of people that have mentioned their omages look darker or brighter in LR that other apps and often times it comes down to background color. When I import a jpeg now everything is zero'd and I start from there. That is my "Import Starting Point" from which I then edit my images.

No and no, which I understand could be part of the problem. All the settings that I have are zero'd out as well, unless there's something that's more "hidden" that I'm totally missing .

I exported 3 files, first sRGB, then Adobe RGB and ProPhoto RGB...All exhibited the expected differences in color but none exhibited the same type of exposure issue I'm referring to. I've got a couple of screen shots below.

First from LR:

Lemme guess: Irfanview uses the 'As shot' WB, and LR uses a preset. Or is this the converted file in both cases?

If so, and this is the sRGB image, something is quite a bit off.


AFAIK IrfanView isn't colormanaged (but I might be wrong there; been a while since I looked into it)

Okay; I checked & appear to be wrong: IrfanView 4.10: Support for embedded color profiles in JPG/TIF (Properties->Viewing).
Not sure what that means for a CR2. It might be ColorManaged, since (if?) it uses the embedded jpg.

René Damkot wrote in post #4223765
Lemme guess: Irfanview uses the 'As shot' WB, and LR uses a preset. Or is this the converted file in both cases?

Not converted files, rather this is how they appear in their respective viewers. Irfanview should be using the "as shot" WB and Lightroom is set the same. When I convert the file out of LR (using any of the 3 color spaces) and open using Irfanview, the image looks fine (not under exposed like in the example above).

Then I'm not going crazy!