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Author Topic: Detail Tab in Lightroom: Your Settings?  (Read 13532 times)

bernie west

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Detail Tab in Lightroom: Your Settings?
« on: April 28, 2017, 04:32:44 am »

I think i've finally lost the plot with the Lightroom detail tab.  Nothing seems to produce the results I expect.  I've pretty much become a random slide mover.  One day I'm using high details and low radius.. the next day I'm using high amount and low details.  The next I'm using masking at 10... then the next day at 60.  I don't know what I'm doing.  I think the only thing I can operate successfully there is the color noise slider.  I find that 10-15 fixes almost all colour noise I encounter.

I've reverted to just using the built in presets for sharpening (scenic or face) and just randomly moving the noise reduction sliders around.  To be honest, I'm fairly happy with the sharpening from the presets.  But if I need to mask out the sky etc in a noisy image, it all turns to crap when I start trying to use the masking slider.  Low or high, I just can't get a result that looks even mildly acceptable.  I find the masking has to be quite strong to be effective, but the transition from masked to not masked is then quite abrupt and messy.  Then I have to adjust the sharpening and noise sliders to try and fix that, and it all goes totally pear-shaped.

So, what are the settings you like to use, and why?  I'm interested in knowing how you perceive the image to change with each of the sliders.  I just read some old threads where Schewe and others gave some more detailed info on what exactly some of the sliders do (like the sharpening being predominantly USM below 50 on the details slider, and more deconvolution above 50; and also how the local sharpening slider works - below negative 50 for blur, -50 to 0 for less local capture sharpening, 0 to 100 for more local capture sharpening).

So what settings do you like to use for what images?
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Simon Garrett

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Re: Detail Tab in Lightroom: Your Settings?
« Reply #1 on: April 28, 2017, 12:12:38 pm »

No advice to give, but in case you don't know: holding ALT (or Option on a Mac) while moving the Detail sliders gives a better view of what's happening.  The effect varies on the slider (and does nothing on the colour ones) - if you've not tried this, see what it does. 
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BradSmith

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Re: Detail Tab in Lightroom: Your Settings?
« Reply #2 on: April 28, 2017, 03:32:04 pm »

Simon,
thanks for the reminder.  I had forgotten this.  Very helpful.
Brad
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bernie west

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Re: Detail Tab in Lightroom: Your Settings?
« Reply #3 on: April 29, 2017, 12:28:15 am »

Oh, I'd forgotten that too.  Cheers!
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Dave Rosser

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Re: Detail Tab in Lightroom: Your Settings?
« Reply #4 on: April 29, 2017, 01:51:28 pm »

Have a look at this video. Jeff Schewe explains it quite well. (Don't worry that it is a Lightroom 4 video - it hasn't changed)
Lightroom sharpening video
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Hoggy

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Re: Detail Tab in Lightroom: Your Settings?
« Reply #5 on: April 30, 2017, 12:07:04 am »

Even after a few years with all this stuff, a number of sliders in the detail panel still remain a bit on the fuzzy side, for me.  Although I'm not completely random with it anymore..  More like ordered randomness. ;)

OTOH, I think this is one of the panels that will always remain extremely subjective..  And one where subjectiveness itself will always be heavily changing even in the same person, and even for the same image, over time (and also including whether or not one is wearing their computer glasses at the time, like they're supposed to  :-[ ).  I also don't think it helps that I've never come across any completely hard detailed facts on what each slider does technically..  As in, from a Lightroom programmer's explanation.  For all I know, those details may even be a trade secret protected by nda's..??

So I think refreshers are probably always in order from time to time, even if it's just to [re-]hear others' perspectives on what they like to do with them.

And for people that aren't able to view the previously mentioned video, like myself, here's a good explanatory on YouTube from Anthony Morganti:
https://youtu.be/KkrYXOszvfI
« Last Edit: May 01, 2017, 10:38:09 pm by Hoggy »
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Hoggy

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Re: Detail Tab in Lightroom: Your Settings?
« Reply #6 on: April 30, 2017, 12:31:42 am »

I just read some old threads where Schewe and others gave some more detailed info on what exactly some of the sliders do ( [snip] and also how the local sharpening slider works - below negative 50 for blur, -50 to 0 for less local capture sharpening, 0 to 100 for more local capture sharpening).

Do you happen to still have those links handy on the local sharpening info?  I could use a refresher on those specifics, since I just had a case where I only wanted to reduce the capture sharpening part.
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Dave Rosser

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Re: Detail Tab in Lightroom: Your Settings?
« Reply #7 on: April 30, 2017, 04:41:38 am »

Even after a few years with all this stuff, a number of sliders in the detail panel still remain a bit on the fuzzy side, for me.  Although I'm not completely random with it anymore..  More like ordered randomness. ;)

OTOH, I think this is one of the panels that will always remain extremely subjective..  And one where subjectiveness itself will always be heavily changing even in the same person over time (and also including whether or not one is wearing their computer glasses at the time, like they're supposed to  :-[ ).  I also don't think it helps that I've never come across any completely hard detailed facts on what each slider does technically..  As in, from a Lightroom programmer's explanation.  For all I know, those details may even be a trade secret protected by nda's..??

So I think refreshers are probably always in order from time to time, even if it's just to [re-]hear others' perspectives on what they like to do with them.

And for people that aren't able to view the previously mentioned video, like myself, here's a good explanatory on YouTube from Anthony Morganti:
https://youtu.be/KkrYXOszvfI
Sorry, I jumped to the conclusion that those posting on this forum were also Lula members.
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Tony Jay

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Re: Detail Tab in Lightroom: Your Settings?
« Reply #8 on: April 30, 2017, 05:25:17 am »

Bernie, you are clearly stumbling around in the dark.

The best advice has already been given so I will only second this: get the Lightroom tutorial videos from this site - Jeff Schewe does the best job of explaining what is going on in the details tab.

To emphasise - there is no one-size-fits-all combination of detail settings so to ask for a straw poll of settings is pretty meaningless. Each image needs to be dealt with on its own merits.
By the time Jeff is through explaining to you how to approach sharpening and noise reduction you will really understand my comments.

Tony Jay
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bernie west

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Re: Detail Tab in Lightroom: Your Settings?
« Reply #9 on: April 30, 2017, 06:23:19 am »

Do you happen to still have those links handy on the local sharpening info?  I could use a refresher on those specifics, since I just had a case where I only wanted to reduce the capture sharpening part.

No, I'd have to google to try and find them again.  What I mentioned was pretty much all that was said.  There were two opinions of how the details slider worked (one was as I described, and the other was that it was all USM below 50 and all deconvolution above 50), but they were never detailed any further.
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bernie west

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Re: Detail Tab in Lightroom: Your Settings?
« Reply #10 on: April 30, 2017, 06:25:55 am »

Dave and Tony... I'm not going to get a subscription at this stage.  I'm only really on the site about once or twice a year these days.  It's usually possible to find everything out by reading various posts here and around the web and by getting tidbits here and there from asking direct questions.  Of course, it takes forever and a lot of digging to do it that way...
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bernie west

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Re: Detail Tab in Lightroom: Your Settings?
« Reply #11 on: April 30, 2017, 06:31:30 am »

Interestingly after I started this thread I decided to do a bit of a test of different methods/sliders.  I just grabbed a random image with lots of detail out what was open in my lightroom catalogue at the time and tried a few different things.  Focussed (so to speak) on an area that was in focus and just moving towards out of focus.  The idea was to test whether using details above 50 would provide some deconvolution in those areas ever so lightly out of focus.  I also tried using Nik Raw Pre-sharpener.  And also no raw sharpening.  Then I output sharpened to screen on the images with either Smart Sharpen in PS or the output sharpening for screen in LR.  The end result?  Using the "scenic" preset in LR with "strong" output sharpening in LR looked better than all the other combinations.  That's not to say that it's going to work best for all images, but it put my mind at ease a bit that the presets are pretty good for that type of landscape image. 
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Hoggy

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Re: Detail Tab in Lightroom: Your Settings?
« Reply #12 on: April 30, 2017, 06:32:07 pm »

  There were two opinions of how the details slider worked (one was as I described, and the other was that it was all USM below 50 and all deconvolution above 50), but they were never detailed any further.

FWIW, I'll add my vote to the first way that's been described.  My understanding has been that it's a completely gradual mix from one end to the other.

One big name to look for in searches is Eric Chan - one of the main camera raw engineers..  Often goes by the nickname "Madman Chan"/"madmanchan".  I think I'll do the same, cause I could use a refresher, especially on the local bit.  I'll make sure to save them somewhere this time, like I did for the guidelines on HDR exposure ranges for LR's built-in feature.  (Edit: I should probably clarify that I know for sure Eric(IIRC) has gone into a little bit of detail about this, but it's been a while since I read it.  Neither do I remember which site it was from.)
« Last Edit: April 30, 2017, 06:45:30 pm by Hoggy »
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Wolfman

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Re: Detail Tab in Lightroom: Your Settings?
« Reply #13 on: April 30, 2017, 06:36:19 pm »

In the latter part of this video he goes into the detail tab in camera raw and describes his method for sharpening. This is also his favorite way to sharpen from all the options:  https://fstoppers.com/education/how-sharpen-images-photoshop-175056

bernie west

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Re: Detail Tab in Lightroom: Your Settings?
« Reply #14 on: April 30, 2017, 11:26:25 pm »

Interestingly after I started this thread I decided to do a bit of a test of different methods/sliders.  I just grabbed a random image with lots of detail out what was open in my lightroom catalogue at the time and tried a few different things.  Focussed (so to speak) on an area that was in focus and just moving towards out of focus.  The idea was to test whether using details above 50 would provide some deconvolution in those areas ever so lightly out of focus.  I also tried using Nik Raw Pre-sharpener.  And also no raw sharpening.  Then I output sharpened to screen on the images with either Smart Sharpen in PS or the output sharpening for screen in LR.  The end result?  Using the "scenic" preset in LR with "strong" output sharpening in LR looked better than all the other combinations.  That's not to say that it's going to work best for all images, but it put my mind at ease a bit that the presets are pretty good for that type of landscape image.

Just to expand on this...

The image I chose was low ISO and reasonably well lit.  Where i tend to get in trouble is when I have to do both sharpening and noise reduction in LR.  That's when things tend to get confusing.  I find myself going back and forth between sharpening and noise reduction trying to find the right point of both to give the optimal output.  I really struggle to get something that I am happy with.
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Jeremy Roussak

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Re: Detail Tab in Lightroom: Your Settings?
« Reply #15 on: May 01, 2017, 03:17:33 am »

Dave and Tony... I'm not going to get a subscription at this stage.  I'm only really on the site about once or twice a year these days.

You won't spend $12? What are you thinking?

Jeremy
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Rhossydd

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Re: Detail Tab in Lightroom: Your Settings?
« Reply #16 on: May 01, 2017, 04:30:34 am »

You won't spend $12? What are you thinking?
Even as a one off to access the videos it's a bargain.
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Denis de Gannes

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Re: Detail Tab in Lightroom: Your Settings?
« Reply #17 on: May 01, 2017, 05:22:00 am »

This short video on the Detail Panel gives a short and refreshing tutorial on the use of the Detail Paned in Lightroom.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f7oEFc-UO1Q
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bernie west

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Re: Detail Tab in Lightroom: Your Settings?
« Reply #18 on: May 01, 2017, 06:23:37 am »

You won't spend $12? What are you thinking?

I'm thinking that money is short and I only spend things on what I absolutely have to.  I'll forward you my bank details since money comes and goes easy for you.
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Hoggy

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Re: Detail Tab in Lightroom: Your Settings?
« Reply #19 on: May 01, 2017, 06:44:43 am »

I'm thinking that money is short and I only spend things on what I absolutely have to.  I'll forward you my bank details since money comes and goes easy for you.

Hear, here.  Must be nice to be able to spend money frivolously.  Consider yourself VERY fortunate if you can..  And hope you never come across a disabling illness.
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