Something I've noticed while watching post-processing tutorials for Lightroom is that the person will say to turn the highlights all the way down, and shadows all the way up. And then they will say to set the white point, and black point (by holding down the alt key and dragging).
I used to think this ended up looking bad, but now I'm trying it out again and it actually makes photos come out pretty good after also editing the exposure and contrast.
I also found this while googling:
"The Adobe Photoshop Lightroom 5 Book by Martin Evening has this cryptic sentence (Page 197):
The tone adjustment controls are meant to be applied in the order they appear listed in the Basic Panel."
So is it officially intended that you edit in this order (bring down highlights->lift shadows->white point->black point), at least for most photos?
>>2829955
>So is it officially intended that you edit in this order (bring down highlights->lift shadows->white point->black point), at least for most photos?
No, they mean more like; you adjust the exposure, then the curves, then the colors, then any split toning you may want, then sharpening, etc. Each "group" goes in order, but not necessarily each slider.
For instance, in the HSL panel, you don't have to adjust red, THEN orange, THEN yellow, etc.
>>2829959
Welllll it says "tone adjustment controls" so I think it is specifically referencing highlights, shadows, whites, and blacks, because those are labeled "Tone" in Lightroom
I have done this on a few of my well-praised images here
>>2829976
What made me want to try this out again was looking at Steve McCurry's photos. The post-processing on his images looks really nice and overall very balanced (high dynamic range I think it is called?). Using this technique makes my photos look balanced in a similar way, and I guess that is what I am essentially doing by making the image flatter and then setting the white and black point. I should probably learn more about the histogram and all that
>>2829980
For many types of photos, expanding the displayed dynamic range of the image as much as you can, and then adding back mid-tone contrast goes a long way to make the image look better. One of the hallmarks of film is that it has a tremendous amount of dynamic range, but yet still shows contrast, and what you're doing here does a good job of giving that similar feel to your digital work. Especially if you finesse the tones to keep the highlights bright, but not blown, and keep the shadows dark, but not black, etc.
>>2829983
Never knew that! I'm still learning a lot. Do you have any particular good readings or articles about film's dynamic range? I'm interested
Also funny thing is that for the past few months I've been using the VSCO film presets as a starting point for my photos -- I was never really going for a fake film look, I just liked the colors they gave me to start with, and I would always turn down the grain and edit the photo a lot in general to pull it back to a point that I liked. But just using the tone settings like this gets to that point I like much faster and gives better results, in my opinion. Thankfully I didn't pay for VSCO
>>2829955
If you adjust the white/black points before changing the highlights/shadows you end up changing those white/black points again.
So it makes more sense to do them last.
>>2829955
b-but muh dynamic range
>>2830004
Like the other guy said, it expands the dynamic range!
>>2829955
Can you post an example of a photo processed in this way?
>>2830223
Just do it on your own. It's easy to see the difference.
always and forever
>>2830252
>clarity
>ever
>>2834126
When you've lowered global contrast like that, it can help to give small detail contrast back. And can also make B&W stuff look a little more poppy, so long as you don't take it far enough that it looks tone-mapped.
>>2834129
it looks shit no exceptions.
>>2834130
Oh yeah good point.
>>2829955
Huh. I never realized. Yeah, it does look like it works for a range of pictures. Of course you can end up with a horrible pseudo-hdr mess, but I'm glad to be aware of the principle here. Thanks, anon! Here's a snapshit with my newfound editing skills applied.
[EXIF data available. Click here to show/hide.]
Camera-Specific Properties: Equipment Make OLYMPUS IMAGING CORP. Camera Model E-M5MarkII Camera Software Adobe Photoshop Lightroom 6.5.1 (Windows) Maximum Lens Aperture f/1.4 Color Filter Array Pattern 744 Focal Length (35mm Equiv) 50 mm Image-Specific Properties: Horizontal Resolution 96 dpi Vertical Resolution 96 dpi Image Created 2016:05:08 23:35:18 Exposure Time 1/2500 sec F-Number f/4.0 Exposure Program Aperture Priority ISO Speed Rating 200 Lens Aperture f/4.0 Exposure Bias 0 EV Metering Mode Center Weighted Average Light Source Unknown Flash No Flash, Auto Focal Length 25.00 mm Color Space Information sRGB Rendering Normal Exposure Mode Auto White Balance Auto Scene Capture Type Standard Gain Control Low Gain Up Contrast Normal Saturation Normal Sharpness Normal
>>2834168
This looks shit
>>2834169
Good point. Well expressed. Clearly not just your contrarian opinion.
>INB4 if you knew anything, you'd know why it's terrible but you don't so I won't bother to explain it to you.
>not raping the dynamic range with the best tool
Get on my level /p/.
[EXIF data available. Click here to show/hide.]
Camera-Specific Properties: Camera Software Adobe Photoshop CC (Windows) Image-Specific Properties: Image Orientation Top, Left-Hand Horizontal Resolution 72 dpi Vertical Resolution 72 dpi Image Created 2016:05:08 22:58:30 Color Space Information sRGB Image Width 2000 Image Height 1125
>>2834168
>>2834171
>using the word "contrarian" as your blanket defense mechanism for your ineptitude, inadequacy, incompetence and impotence.
He's right, your editing is fucking terrible. (inb4 "no it's my intention that everything in the picture looks like dogshit = MUH ARTS")
The sky is atrocious on the lower left.
The water looks like raw sewage.
Color temperature of everything is far too yellow (which gives the yellow and orange objects nothing to stand out against in the foreground, when they're already the only color in the badly composed snapshit)
Oh, and it's a badly composed snapshit. Complete noisy junk in the left and completely boring detail-less wall on the right side.
Quit your dayjob, if you're this bad at editing you're also probably dragging your other company down as well.
>>2834126
I get the hate on clarity, I really do
but concert stuff REQUIRES it. concert stuff that doesn't use clarity looks disgusting
portraits I only use a tiny bit and black and white I use it but idk.
I embrace clarity.
>>2834193
Sorry, that's some other anon defending my shit from your non-critique. Thanks for elaborating, I'll be sure to check myself on those points next time. Yeah, I'm glad I'm way better at programming than at photography after having been practicing for 20 years.
I do notice, though, that none of your criticism seems to consider the express technique this thread was about. The fucked up skies, color balance and composition rather have everything to do with my skills and all the other shit I slapped on the pic in LR. But again, thanks for interjecting with your opinion on the whole piece.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hwn9gxWQ9jg&list=PLu4unqyuOpTHdnuxOjnxZvaAiZ23YRLgR&index=5
> a counter-balance to many popular lightroom videos which rely on the "-100 highlights +100 shadows" workflow
>>2834555
He's specifically referring to HDR.
>>2829980
>was looking at Steve McCurry's photos
which ones? post link/pics
>>2830103
>>2829993
>it expands the dynamic range
it's literally, objectively the opposite
>>2834555
/thread
>>2835209
Please explain what you mean.
It seems to me like it works for the most part, and doesn't seem to hurt the image quality in any way
>>2835251
>Photographers use "dynamic range" for the luminance range of a scene being photographed, or the limits of luminance range that a given digital camera or film can capture
Since you don't understand what dynamic range is.
In practice
>Graduated neutral density filters are used to decrease the dynamic range of scene luminance that can be captured on photographic film (or on the image sensor of a digital camera)
What you are doing when you make shadow objects bright and make highlight objects dark is simply reducing the dynamic range of the image.
You might personally like an image with a smaller dynamic range which is fine, but there are actually idiots who are using the phrase increased-dynamic-range as a buzzword for the exact opposite of what it actually means.
>>2835251
It's really fucking easy to image a graph of it.
Use your brain.
>>2835276
>image a graph
>>2835278
sorry i am drink
>>2835258
So you're telling me, that being able to see the detail in the shadow and detail in the highlights, is in fact low dynamic range. And an image with super high contrast is actually very high dynamic range?
I used grad NDs, and yeah it helps with the overall dynamic range, but it achieves a very similar effect of pulling down highlights or pushing shadows.
>>2835495
>So you're telling me, that being able to see the detail in the shadow and detail in the highlights, is in fact low dynamic range. And an image with super high contrast is actually very high dynamic range?
He's looking at it from the other side of the situation.
When an image is showing lots of detail in shadows and highlights, he's saying it has low dynamic range because the tones have been compressed to be displayed well (whereas most of us would call that high dynamic range because the whole range from shadows to highlights is being displayed)
And that an image where the shadows are crushed and the highlights are white is a high dynamic range SCENE, where we might call it low dynamic range since the displayed range is too low to capture all the detail in the image.
It's not wrong, it's just looking at it from a different variable.
>>2835499
Ohh, I see. But from my understanding, wouldn't the camera's ability to show more detail in the shadows and highlights by definition, have a high dynamic range? I know it has to be processed to pull the detail out, but that doesn't mean it doesn't have a good dynamic range.
Even when using a grad ND, that doesn't assure awesome DR, it will help for the big picture, but there are still other shadows in the scene that might need brightening that can't be achieved any other way
>>2835495
>>2835508
you still just don't understand what the word means.
You are not adding any detail when you edit the image. The detail is already there at the time the shutter button is pushed.
All you're doing is instead of a 5-stop spread (high DR) you're compressing it by moving the shadows up a stop and the highlights down a stop. Suddenly you have a 3-stop dynamic range image instead of a 5-stop dynamic range image.
You're essentially doing nothing more than creating a thinner histogram where details that are already there are made grey instead of black-ish and made grey instead of white-ish.
This thin histogram may be pleasing to you, but stop making yourself look like an idiot by calling it "high dynamic range", there is no definition of high DR that it meets.
>>2835528
What HE'S saying is that, once you've filled shadows and recovered highlights, you now have an image that is displaying detail from a high range of brightness values.
He is also not wrong, and is also just thinking about it from the other side of the coin.
It would be very /p/ for you two to argue about this.
What's all this misinformation and fuckery about DR.
> Dynamic range, abbreviated DR or DNR, is the ratio between the largest and smallest values of a changeable quantity, such as in signals like sound and light.
DR refers to the sensors ability to capture a signal, when its DR capability is exceeded, it clips. DR has nothing to do with tone mapping, which is what is being referred to in this thread.
> Tone mapping is a technique used in image processing and computer graphics to map one set of colors to another to approximate the appearance of high-dynamic-range images in a medium that has a more limited dynamic range.
Regardless of how an image is PPed, the DR of it cannot be increased from its original. But with tone mapping, the image is given the appearance of having a greater DR, by pulling the details in the highlights/shadow range into the mids. The difference between 0-5 or 250-255 is barely distinguishable, but pull that to the mids and suddenly one sees more in the image.
>>2835542
One can discuss the dynamic range of a sensor, and also discuss the dynamic range of a photo. One can even use the term in a weird way and discuss the dynamic range of a scene in real life!
Language is for communicating ideas. Look for the ideas. The dictionary doesn't need a Paladin to defend it, and all you're doing is annoying everyone by pretending you don't know what they mean for the sake of getting to feel like you're winning.
>>2835528
>3 Stop dynamic range
Uhhh no. There's an entire range of light in-between pure black and pure white. Ideally, you would adjust the image so that the darkest dark just barely starts to clip, and the brightest white just barely starts to clip, then adjust the values in the middle how you want them. So by your definition, and unprocessed image has 0 stops of dynamic range?? Get your head out of your ass.
Pic related just shows what dynamic range means. Dark shadows and bright highlights brought closer together. That is a single image, not HDR or anything. Just the dynamic range. Pretty sure there's more than 3 stops of DR.
[EXIF data available. Click here to show/hide.]
Camera-Specific Properties: Equipment Make SONY Camera Model ILCE-7R Camera Software Adobe Photoshop CC 2015 (Macintosh) Maximum Lens Aperture f/2.8 Focal Length (35mm Equiv) 24 mm Image-Specific Properties: Image Orientation Top, Left-Hand Horizontal Resolution 300 dpi Vertical Resolution 300 dpi Image Created 2016:05:10 09:21:10 Exposure Time 1/40 sec F-Number f/11.0 Exposure Program Manual ISO Speed Rating 100 Lens Aperture f/11.0 Brightness 3.8 EV Exposure Bias 0 EV Metering Mode Pattern Light Source Unknown Flash No Flash, Compulsory Focal Length 24.00 mm Color Space Information Uncalibrated Image Width 1200 Image Height 800 Rendering Normal Exposure Mode Manual White Balance Auto Scene Capture Type Standard Contrast Normal Saturation Normal Sharpness Normal
HIGHly empty DYANMIC RANGE
>>2835548
linguistic prescriptivism holds for technical terms
feel free to shibboleth yourself as a retard by using them wrongly though
>>2835581
How is it incorrect to use the term dynamic range in the context of a final image?
>>2835589
it isn't, but brighting the shadows and lowering the highlights is the opposite of high dynamic range in that context, it is low dynamic range.
>>2835589
>How is it incorrect to MISuse the term dynamic range in the context of a final image?
fixed that for you.
>>2835590
The image would be showing a high dynamic range of detail in widely different light values, on a lower dynamic range medium.
The dynamic range of the display medium doesn't change. So you can choose to display a high range of exposure, or a low range of exposure, on your display medium.
Why are you refusing to understand what's being said? You're coming across as a moron who can't understand simple concepts, and a autistic person who can't understand someone else's point of view.
>>2835592
No, you just re-stated the fact that it's wrong, while ignoring the question asking WHY it would be wrong.
>>2835590
You've got your definitions so fucked, it's ridiculous. Here's an image I made just for you. I made sure to adjust all contrast, all curves, and all black and white points to give the highest contrast possible. This is your definition of high dynamic range. This is not good dynamic range in my book, but that's just my opinion
[EXIF data available. Click here to show/hide.]
Camera-Specific Properties: Equipment Make SONY Camera Model ILCE-7R Camera Software Adobe Photoshop Camera Raw 9.5.1 (Macintosh) Maximum Lens Aperture f/2.8 Focal Length (35mm Equiv) 24 mm Image-Specific Properties: Horizontal Resolution 300 dpi Vertical Resolution 300 dpi Image Created 2016:05:10 10:03:22 Exposure Time 1/320 sec F-Number f/6.3 Exposure Program Manual ISO Speed Rating 100 Lens Aperture f/6.3 Brightness 8.8 EV Exposure Bias 0 EV Metering Mode Pattern Light Source Unknown Flash No Flash, Compulsory Focal Length 24.00 mm Color Space Information Uncalibrated Rendering Normal Exposure Mode Manual White Balance Auto Scene Capture Type Standard Contrast Normal Saturation Normal Sharpness Normal
>>2835597
>This is your definition of high dynamic range
No, that is my definition of low dynamic range, because while the scene has high dynamic range, the image is showing a very small portion of it, therefore, that image has a low dynamic range.
>>2835601
Then please, show me an image you think has a wide dynamic range. You seem to have zero grasp on the concept.
You say that having detail in the shadow and detail in the highlight is low dynamic range, and you say that having high contrast is low dynamic range. So what the fuck are you even talking about, please show me
>>2835606
Nigger, you seem to be confusing display media and capture media.
The capture medium might have the ability to capture a very wide dynamic range.
You then compress the dynamic range of that image to display well on the low dynamic range of your print medium.
A display with high dynamic range would get so bright that your eyes would have to adjust for sunlight, and 14 stops in the image would correspond to 14 stops in the display. That doesn't exist, so you compress the dynamic range for print.
>>2835609
So then:
>show me an image you think has a wide dynamic range
>>2835609
So then go to /tv/ if you want to talk about displays, we're talking about cameras.
SHOW ME AN IMAGE WITH A WIDE DYNAMIC RANGE FAG
It doesn't even need to be yours, just fucking show me one
>>2835610
Literally any untouched raw file shot in a contrasty situation.
I can't "show" you, because your browser doesn't support nef or raf, and even if I showed you in lightroom, it would still only be an approximation, since i could only show you slices of the entire dynamic range. it would still be a low dynamic range print compared to the inherent dynamic range of the file.
You also don't have a 14-bit display. No one does.
>>2835614
Oh my fuck. Get this guy out of here.
He literally thinks anything less than looking at something with your eyeballs is low dynamic range.
Seriously, you don't belong on this thread.
>>2835614
>I can't "show" you
Hahaha
This is the sort of person you're dealing with when you argue on /p/. Everybody take note.
>>2835614
>>2835597
>>2835597
>>2835606
A dynamic range is a fucking range. Do any of you know what a range is? It's the difference between the largest and smallest value in a set. It's not how many values are in the set, it's not how many values within the range are actually present in the set it's not the variance of values. A completely black and white picture has a higher dynamic range than a greyscale one even if the latter is more pleasing to the eyes and realistic.
>>2835624
HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAAHAHAHAHAHAHAAHAHAHAH
You can still have high dynamic range both ways faggot!!
Believe it or not you can still have high dynamic range and clip the shadows and highlights!
Pic related shows you that. So you have the entire range, from pure black to pure white, and still have relatively low contrast over the whole image, using the technique as shown by OP
[EXIF data available. Click here to show/hide.]
Camera-Specific Properties: Camera Software Adobe Photoshop CC 2015 (Macintosh) Image-Specific Properties: Image Orientation Top, Left-Hand Horizontal Resolution 144 dpi Vertical Resolution 144 dpi Image Created 2016:05:10 11:08:18 Color Space Information Uncalibrated Image Width 2880 Image Height 1712
>>2835637
Are you seriously trying to defend yourself with that image? Its fucking terrible and the "dynamic range" you refer to is just tonemapping via sliders.
>>2835641
No shit it's not a good image, it's mid day inside with the death valley sun outside. It's a fucking example of how you can still have a full range, and use OP's technique. It's not tone mapping.
I'm not defending anything except the fact that this guy
>>2835614
Thinks you can't have the full range of tones with what OP is talking about.
Why would I post a high res of my good images?
>>2835644
>It's not tone mapping.
Yes it is.
>Thinks you can't have the full range of tones with what OP is talking about.
No I don't. Where did I say that? Tonality =/= dynamic range.
>>2835637
I'm not sure what you're being so hysterical about. Yes you can have a wide variety of color distributions with the same dynamic range. I explained this to you in my post.
>>2835683
I can't even tell whos who anymore. Are you the one that said that using op's technique would make the image only cover 3 stops?
>>2835688
No, I'm the one who made that one comment about the meaning of dynamic range.
>>2835690
I agree with your meaning, that the maximum amount of dynamic range is from pure black to pure white. But in terms of photography, it's not talking about the final product, because with your definition of DR, a litteral black and white stencil would count as perfect DR. In terms of photography, I'm talking about HOW FAR into the highlights, and how far into the shadows can still be seen before it turns to pure black and pure white without losing information.
>luddites butchering the precise defined meaning of scientific / STEM terms
>>2835768
Feel free to leave if our use of words for the sake of communication is triggering you too much. I'm sure there's a quiet dimly lit room full of dictionaries and soothing textured blankets to keep you calm and safe.
>>2835701
>In terms of photography, I'm talking about HOW FAR into the highlights, and how far into the shadows can still be seen before it turns to pure black and pure white without losing information.
The problem is that you (and a lot of other people in this thread) are treating, in "terms of photography", the negative and the print as the same thing.
They aren't, and that's where the fundamental confusion lies.
>>2834168
looks great
