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Author Topic: Technique for Desaturating Darks/Shadows?  (Read 11042 times)

mcmorrison

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Technique for Desaturating Darks/Shadows?
« on: August 03, 2011, 11:58:36 am »

Hello,

I find that for some ETTR images I must bring the Black slider up a ways. When I do this, I find the shadows become over-saturated. I wonder if there is a clean way to desaturate these areas?

Thanks!

Michael Morrison
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Richowens

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Re: Technique for Desaturating Darks/Shadows?
« Reply #1 on: August 03, 2011, 02:46:43 pm »


Michael,

Try "Fill Light" or negative "Vibrance". Also on the parametric curve pull the "Darks" slider to the positive side.
If it is a specific color you can use the saturation slider for that color in the HSL panel to desaturate.

Another thought is to use the brush in desaturation to seloectively desaturate local areas.

Rich
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digitaldog

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Re: Technique for Desaturating Darks/Shadows?
« Reply #2 on: August 03, 2011, 03:13:09 pm »

I don’t know if this well help, but George Jardine showed me a tip that I think works really well in general; leave Blacks alone, tweak the Shadows slider instead. Its definitely not the same, but I find it provides the rendering I’m trying to produce instead of using the Black slider.

While a lot more work, a technique that works really well for handling these shadows is to build a grayscale mask for Photoshop that targets only shadows. Load that and use Hue/Sat. You can actually build a really good mask in Lightroom that targets just shadows, convert to B&W and render. That iteration will have three identical RGB channels you can use to load into the original RGB file (Load Selection). In the past, the trick was to make a dupe of the master (duplicate), convert to CMYK and use the black channel as the mask to load for shadows, usually after pulling curves or Levels. The idea is to produce a grayscale single channel file (or one of the composite channels) that only has white on the image for the shadows, black (protect) for everything else.

Simpler but less effective is Color range, Target shadows. Desaturate what it selects (but its a crude selection).
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mcmorrison

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Re: Technique for Desaturating Darks/Shadows?
« Reply #3 on: August 03, 2011, 05:31:19 pm »

Hello,

I'll give the shadow slider a try, thanks! I have thought of using PS (though not all the methods you describe, thanks!), but am hoping for a pure LR solution. . .

Thanks!

Michael

Update:  The darkening the shadows with the shadow slider seems to increase saturation about as much as using the blacks slider. . .
« Last Edit: August 03, 2011, 06:22:43 pm by mcmorrison »
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jrsforums

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Re: Technique for Desaturating Darks/Shadows?
« Reply #4 on: August 03, 2011, 09:53:10 pm »

I don’t know if this well help, but George Jardine showed me a tip that I think works really well in general; leave Blacks alone, tweak the Shadows slider instead. Its definitely not the same, but I find it provides the rendering I’m trying to produce instead of using the Black slider.

While a lot more work, a technique that works really well for handling these shadows is to build a grayscale mask for Photoshop that targets only shadows. Load that and use Hue/Sat. You can actually build a really good mask in Lightroom that targets just shadows, convert to B&W and render. That iteration will have three identical RGB channels you can use to load into the original RGB file (Load Selection). In the past, the trick was to make a dupe of the master (duplicate), convert to CMYK and use the black channel as the mask to load for shadows, usually after pulling curves or Levels. The idea is to produce a grayscale single channel file (or one of the composite channels) that only has white on the image for the shadows, black (protect) for everything else.

Simpler but less effective is Color range, Target shadows. Desaturate what it selects (but its a crude selection).

If you are going over to Photoshop, you may want to use Luminosity Masks...

http://goodlight.us/writing/luminositymasks/luminositymasks-1.html

John
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aduke

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Re: Technique for Desaturating Darks/Shadows?
« Reply #5 on: August 03, 2011, 09:57:34 pm »

I don’t know if this well help, but George Jardine showed me a tip that I think works really well in general; leave Blacks alone, tweak the Shadows slider instead. Its definitely not the same, but I find it provides the rendering I’m trying to produce instead of using the Black slider.



Thanks Andrew, this worked really well in both of the images I tried it on.

Alan
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Rhossydd

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Re: Technique for Desaturating Darks/Shadows?
« Reply #6 on: August 04, 2011, 04:26:37 am »

leave Blacks alone, tweak the Shadows slider instead.
"Shadows slider" ?????
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francois

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Re: Technique for Desaturating Darks/Shadows?
« Reply #7 on: August 04, 2011, 04:36:12 am »

"Shadows slider" ?????
In the tone curve pane of either ACR or Lightroom, see attached screenshot.
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Francois

Rhossydd

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Re: Technique for Desaturating Darks/Shadows?
« Reply #8 on: August 04, 2011, 12:56:17 pm »

In the tone curve pane of either ACR or Lightroom, see attached screenshot.
That took a wade through the help files to re-activate those options, I'd assumed they'd been dropped in V3
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francois

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Re: Technique for Desaturating Darks/Shadows?
« Reply #9 on: August 04, 2011, 01:13:05 pm »

yes, sometimes the obvious is not obvious!
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Francois

JohnKoerner

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Re: Technique for Desaturating Darks/Shadows?
« Reply #10 on: August 12, 2011, 06:34:57 am »

That took a wade through the help files to re-activate those options, I'd assumed they'd been dropped in V3


What did you have to do, exactly?

Those sliders are not in my 3.4 version by default :(

Thanks.
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francois

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Re: Technique for Desaturating Darks/Shadows?
« Reply #11 on: August 12, 2011, 08:07:06 am »


What did you have to do, exactly?

Those sliders are not in my 3.4 version by default :(

Thanks.

You can control-click (or right-click) on the right-side panel. A pop-up menu will allow you to choose the active sections.
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Francois

Richowens

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Re: Technique for Desaturating Darks/Shadows?
« Reply #12 on: August 12, 2011, 11:25:19 am »

  The small box in the lower right of the curve panel, with the line through it, will switch between parametric curve and point curve.

 Just click on the box.

Rich
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JohnKoerner

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Re: Technique for Desaturating Darks/Shadows?
« Reply #13 on: August 12, 2011, 12:29:26 pm »

 The small box in the lower right of the curve panel, with the line through it, will switch between parametric curve and point curve.
 Just click on the box.
Rich


That did the trick, thanks Rich.

(Thank you too, Francois, I just had to click that lower right box.)

All right, one more question ... sorry it is so basic, LOL ... but how do you guys save your screenshots of programs (such as LR or PS) to be displayed like that?

Jack


.
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wolfnowl

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Re: Technique for Desaturating Darks/Shadows?
« Reply #14 on: August 12, 2011, 02:53:01 pm »

Don't know about anyone else, but on my laptop I press fn + prt sc to make a screenshot; I then paste the image from the clipboard into a graphics program.

Mike.
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JohnKoerner

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Re: Technique for Desaturating Darks/Shadows?
« Reply #15 on: August 12, 2011, 03:45:13 pm »

That will do it--thanks Mike!
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schrodingerscat

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Re: Technique for Desaturating Darks/Shadows?
« Reply #16 on: August 14, 2011, 02:32:40 pm »

All right, one more question ... sorry it is so basic, LOL ... but how do you guys save your screenshots of programs (such as LR or PS) to be displayed like that?

Jack

If on a Mac, at least in 10.6, there's a built in app called Grab. It allows a screen capture of the desktop, a window, or a selection. I keep it in the dock, very handy.
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Jeremy Roussak

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Re: Technique for Desaturating Darks/Shadows?
« Reply #17 on: August 14, 2011, 02:38:22 pm »

If on a Mac, at least in 10.6, there's a built in app called Grab. It allows a screen capture of the desktop, a window, or a selection. I keep it in the dock, very handy.
There are also the very old favourites, cmd-shift-3 to snap the whole screen and cmd-shift-4 to draw a marquee on the screen and snap that. After cmd-shift-4, you can also position the cursor over a window and hit the spacebar to select the whole of that window.

Jeremy
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francois

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Re: Technique for Desaturating Darks/Shadows?
« Reply #18 on: August 14, 2011, 02:54:19 pm »

There are also the very old favourites, cmd-shift-3 to snap the whole screen and cmd-shift-4 to draw a marquee on the screen and snap that. After cmd-shift-4, you can also position the cursor over a window and hit the spacebar to select the whole of that window.

Jeremy
I usually use the classic commands cmd+shift 3 or 4 but Grab allows to get a delayed screenshot which can be useful. There's plenty of enhanced utilities that will allow different manipulations (like blurring areas, adding arrows, lines, rectangles etc.  Ex: LittleSnapper) but the basic stuff provided by the OS will do for most users.
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Francois

Rand47

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Re: Technique for Desaturating Darks/Shadows?
« Reply #19 on: August 18, 2011, 04:28:41 pm »

Here's what I often do, assuming the shadow areas are not too complex in shape.

  • I simply take the painter tool set to null, with the "O" key activated so that I can see the mask I'm painting.
  • Use my Wacom to paint a mask of the shadow to be desaturated.
  • Toggle the "O" off and reduce the saturation slider to taste.
Done.

A tip.  I often paint my mask w/ the "auto mask" off, then clean up the mask edges using the erase w/ auto mask back on.  Learned this from Jeff Schewe and Michael Reichmann, works well.

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