Sony A7rII: Auto Develop setting barks up wrong tree?

[jrp]

When developing my pics with the A7rII in Lightroom, I sometimes push the Auto button, just to see what it does and get a different starting point.

Almost invariably, it adds an extra stop of exposure, modest highlight and shadow settings, and good enough black/white settings.

The extra stop of exposure usually make the picture pleasingly bright, but it blows the highlights, so you dial them back to -100 but they are, typically, still very weak (e.g., skies).

A better approach seems to be to avoid the auto button and fiddle directly, often with the curves, for speed.

But why is it that the Auto button does such a poor job? Bug or feature or miscalibration?

Is there a better workflow?

[Tony Jay]

But why is it that the Auto button does such a poor job? Bug or feature or miscalibration?

Is there a better workflow?

Yes!
Avoid the auto button.
I don't think I have ever used the auto button except as a demonstration of the fact that it probably doesn't work very well.

Tony Jay

[CatOne]

The "auto" button in Lightroom has always been a sad joke.

It's truly horrible. I've never seen it take a photo in a direction that I wanted. It's like it's not even trying.

Aperture and Capture One both do a very good job as a first attempt. It's rarely perfect, and sometimes it's bad, but I'd say 90% of the time they both get closer. As opposed to Lightroom, which can't find its own hind quarters.

I think they should remove the "auto" button if they don't put a real effort into it.

That said, you can just avoid using it, and that's what I suggest. If you want a starting point, create a preset that you apply on import which does some mild tweaking.

[jrp]

Interesting.  As you say, other tools, including the Google Photos and Apple Photos image enhancement auto corrections seem to do a better one-click job (without avoiding the need for further tuning completely, of course).

[rdonson]

When developing my pics with the A7rII in Lightroom, I sometimes push the Auto button, just to see what it does and get a different starting point.

A better approach seems to be to avoid the auto button and fiddle directly, often with the curves, for speed.

But why is it that the Auto button does such a poor job? Bug or feature or miscalibration?

Is there a better workflow?

You'll need to seek out someone from Adobe to answer why "Auto" falls flat.

Is there a better workflow for speedy development?  Yes, there is.  If you're at a loss as to where to start try these shortcuts that Adobe baked into the "Develop" module.  They're not perfect but often get you closer to where you want to go.

- Start with "Whites" and "Blacks" - press the "Shift" key while "double clicking" on Whites or Blacks.  This often sets a reasonable black and white point for your image.

- Lost with Color Treatment (correction)?  If you have a neutral area in your photo use the "eye dropper". 
  - Still at a loss?  Try pressing the "Shift" key and "double clicking" "Temp" or "Tint". 

These aren't perfect solutions but you may be surprised how often they help.  As always, season to taste afterwards.

[Tony Jay]

You'll need to seek out someone from Adobe to answer why "Auto" falls flat.

Auto "normalizes" tone and contrast.

The problem is that the software has no idea what kind of image you have shot.
This is a similar issue (conceptually) to how light meters work - all the light meter wants to do is make what is metered middle grey.
The light meter does not know whether what is metered should be middle grey or not.
The bottom line is that no light meter works all that well without human intervention and interpretation.
That same bottom line (conceptually) applies to tonal manipulation in post-processing - Lightroom cannot know what particular tones really should be because the answer is not, and cannot, be just a collection of values in a file manipulated by a global algorithm.
The only entity that really knows whether the result is correct is the human viewing the result.

Tony Jay

[CatOne]

Auto "normalizes" tone and contrast.

The problem is that the software has no idea what kind of image you have shot.
This is a similar issue (conceptually) to how light meters work - all the light meter wants to do is make what is metered middle grey.
The light meter does not know whether what is metered should be middle grey or not.
The bottom line is that no light meter works all that well without human intervention and interpretation.
That same bottom line (conceptually) applies to tonal manipulation in post-processing - Lightroom cannot know what particular tones really should be because the answer is not, and cannot, be just a collection of values in a file manipulated by a global algorithm.
The only entity that really knows whether the result is correct is the human viewing the result.

Tony Jay

This is not true. I provided two examples of software which can do a pretty good job. Software can fairly easily tell the subject and make assumptions. For example, Apple's software does face detection and can white balance based on skin tone. Plus, it knows it's a face, so it knows what range of exposures may make sense.

Adobe just didn't put any effort into "smarts" around the behavior and just adjusts based on numbers. And the results show.

But don't paint all software with the poor efforts of Lightroom's brush. This is a solvable problem, and others have done it. If Adobe doesn't want to, they should remove the "auto" button and stop pretending. That is an acceptable approach.

[Tony Jay]

This is not true. I provided two examples of software which can do a pretty good job. Software can fairly easily tell the subject and make assumptions. For example, Apple's software does face detection and can white balance based on skin tone. Plus, it knows it's a face, so it knows what range of exposures may make sense.

Adobe just didn't put any effort into "smarts" around the behavior and just adjusts based on numbers. And the results show.

But don't paint all software with the poor efforts of Lightroom's brush. This is a solvable problem, and others have done it. If Adobe doesn't want to, they should remove the "auto" button and stop pretending. That is an acceptable approach.

With the greatest of respect I am referring to Adobe Lightroom.
My post (and the thread) has nothing to do with any other software - read it again.

Tony Jay

[Simon Garrett]

This is not true.

What Tony said is true.  LR takes a fairly mechanistic approach to normalising the tone distribution.  That may not be what one wants, and other software may make a better job of perceptually improving the image, but what Tony said about what LR autotone does is, AFAIK, factually correct. 

[AlterEgo]

The problem is that the software has no idea what kind of image you have shot.

do you notice that digital cameras on full auto produce a more "normal" looking OOC JPG from a raw than LR/ACR with "auto" button from a raw ? no ? may be camera's firmware tries to guess what is in the frame though ? blue skies, green foliage, human skin, etc ?

[AlterEgo]

With the greatest of respect I am referring to Adobe Lightroom.

you 2nd line was totally generic = "software has no idea what kind of image you have shot"... and that's the issue - that specific software, LR/ACR, has to actually try... now it can catalog faces (LR), but it can't adjust the exposure for them properly ? that's funny

[Tony Jay]

you 2nd line was totally generic = "software has no idea what kind of image you have shot"... and that's the issue - that specific software, LR/ACR, has to actually try... now it can catalog faces (LR), but it can't adjust the exposure for them properly ? that's funny

Rubbish - read the WHOLE sentence - your quote excludes the DEFINITE article preceding software.
THE software referring to a specific thing - I even mention Lightroom explicitly later on in the post - and it is clear that I am referring to the same thing the whole way through and not any old software..
In a thread talking about Lightroom and in a forum dedicated to Lightroom.
Context is everything.

Simon Garrett had no issues understanding what I said and the context...

Tony Jay