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Author Topic: Going the OTHER way with RAW processing, the "screw-it-up adjustments"  (Read 9075 times)

fike

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For me, RAW processing proceeds along some generalities.  I almost always do some amount of the following:

TYPICAL ADJUSTMENTS
* Basic stuff, exposure and white balance (no generalities here)
* Darken blacks (move slider to the left)
* Increase clarity (move slider to the right)
* Darken highlights (move slider to the left)
* Lighten shadows (move slider to the right)

These are of course generalities, and sometimes I do the opposite.  But there are a few things I have never found useful:

NEVER ADJUSTMENTS
* Darken whites (move slider left)
* Decrease clarity (move slider left)
* Lighten blacks (move slider right)

Does anyone have any examples where you have gone the OTHER way by making these NEVER ADJUSTMENTS?  I know that processing is never about rules, but I kind of think it is pretty rare to process in these ways and make the image look better. I have started to call them the "screw-it-up adjustments"

I'd love to see some examples where decreasing clarity looked good, or where lightening blacks looked good. 
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markmullen

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Decrease clarity can be useful applied locally when shooting ladies of a certain age, they like how it flatters their looks.

Returning to the OP, I've never found myself using the positive vignette correction to add a vignette.
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Vladimirovich

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I'd love to see some examples where decreasing clarity looked good
portrait for skin
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fike

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Local clarity adjustment for skin sounds good. I have generally used localized blur on a masked layer in PS, so that one didn't occur to me. 
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ErikKaffehr

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Hi,

Pretty much what I do. Don't use "contrast" that much. If sky is include I always use a graduated filter with, pulling down highlights, a tiny bit on exposure and increasing saturation and clarity before working on the rest of the image.

Best regards
Erik


For me, RAW processing proceeds along some generalities.  I almost always do some amount of the following:

TYPICAL ADJUSTMENTS
* Basic stuff, exposure and white balance (no generalities here)
* Darken blacks (move slider to the left)
* Increase clarity (move slider to the right)
* Darken highlights (move slider to the left)
* Lighten shadows (move slider to the right)

These are of course generalities, and sometimes I do the opposite.  But there are a few things I have never found useful:

NEVER ADJUSTMENTS
* Darken whites (move slider left)
* Decrease clarity (move slider left)
* Lighten blacks (move slider right)

Does anyone have any examples where you have gone the OTHER way by making these NEVER ADJUSTMENTS?  I know that processing is never about rules, but I kind of think it is pretty rare to process in these ways and make the image look better. I have started to call them the "screw-it-up adjustments"

I'd love to see some examples where decreasing clarity looked good, or where lightening blacks looked good. 

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Ken Bennett

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There is a "soften skin" preset in the local adjustment brush that is just a minus-clarity. But I find an overall negative 15 or 20 units of clarity enhances many female portraits.

It can also be interesting when applied to macro photographs of flowers.
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PeterAit

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Your post has made me think - always a good thing! I too almost always make the LR adjustments you describe. But, why? Is it because I (or we) are tuned into a certain way that a "good" photo should look?

- Full range from black to white.
- Few if any pure (no detail) blacks or whites.
- Some detail in almost all of the highlights and shadows.
- "Crispness" in the mid-tones ( i.e., clarity).
- And, not mentioned in your list, an obsession with sharpness.

These elements are not bad, of course, but they can be limiting if one thinks that every photo must have them. Here, for example, is a favorite photo of mine that has none of the above-listed attributes:

http://www.peteraitken.com/Miscellany/content/DSC01895_Edit_Edit_large.html

Pretty good photo, I think.
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kaelaria

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Globally, I'm with you, I never touch those three - along with contrast.  I use them locally though.
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PeterAit

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Globally, I'm with you, I never touch those three - along with contrast.  I use them locally though.

With whom?
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stormyboy

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I'm sure no expert, but I find that after I get the basic adjustments pretty much how I like, using the negative white will often take care of any overexposed warning without altering the overall image as much as other corrections might.
Tom
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Schewe

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For me, RAW processing proceeds along some generalities.

Well, that's to be expected if your type of photography proceeds along some generalities too. Are you shooting high contrast scenes? Low contrast sense? Studio lighting? Mixed light?

The controls you need to use will depend on what your original captures look like and what you want to do to improve them. Personally, I always use Exposure and Contrast, but after that it all depends on what the shot needs. If doing tone mapping, I will often pop over to Curves to fine tune or further adjust something. Sometimes back and forth from Basic to Curves...BTW, if you do a +Blacks, you'll sometimes need to go into the point curve editor to pin the blacks point by point.

All of the controls are in there for good reasons and do different things based on the needs of the image. The only Basic control I don't use much is +Saturation (would rather use Vibrance or HSL) and rarely -Clarity.
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ErikKaffehr

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Hi,

Absolutely agree, on all issues.

Best regards
Erik

Your post has made me think - always a good thing! I too almost always make the LR adjustments you describe. But, why? Is it because I (or we) are tuned into a certain way that a "good" photo should look?

- Full range from black to white.
- Few if any pure (no detail) blacks or whites.
- Some detail in almost all of the highlights and shadows.
- "Crispness" in the mid-tones ( i.e., clarity).
- And, not mentioned in your list, an obsession with sharpness.

These elements are not bad, of course, but they can be limiting if one thinks that every photo must have them. Here, for example, is a favorite photo of mine that has none of the above-listed attributes:

http://www.peteraitken.com/Miscellany/content/DSC01895_Edit_Edit_large.html

Pretty good photo, I think.
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fike

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People at this site like to talk a lot about theory and to quibble when someone makes a generalization (no matter its general validity), but they are always hesitant to actually show examples that back them up, except for Peter who showed a good example where he lightened the blacks.  That was nice.  THANKS!

Lots of people have made the point that it depends on the type of photo you want.  Yes of course it does, but what I am wrestling with is that I don't see too many shots that benefit from darkening whites (explicitly THAT control) or lightening blacks (again explicitly THAT control), Peter's example aside. 

I will need to experiment more with negative clarity for smoothing faces. I have tended to do skin smoothing in PS. 
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Bart_van_der_Wolf

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Lots of people have made the point that it depends on the type of photo you want.  Yes of course it does, but what I am wrestling with is that I don't see too many shots that benefit from darkening whites (explicitly THAT control) or lightening blacks (again explicitly THAT control), Peter's example aside.

Hi Marc,

I don't see it as a goal to lighten my shadows or darken my whites during Raw conversion, but it can be useful for the subsequent post-processing steps. I'm in particular a great fan of the relatively new Topaz Clarity plugin, and that (in combination with e.g. their Detail plugin) can clip shadows or highlights if one is not careful.

So as a first step in the post-processing chain of events, with the subsequent steps already planned ahead, it can help to initially lift the shadows and/or lower the highlights a bit. That will allow to maintain more detail in the final rendering where the local contrast is boosted.

Cheers,
Bart
« Last Edit: July 09, 2013, 11:32:14 am by BartvanderWolf »
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== If you do what you did, you'll get what you got. ==

Tim Lookingbill

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Quote
...but they are always hesitant to actually show examples that back them up,...

Yes, I totally agree. Any examples from you to come?

I was going to post examples but I just bought LR4 with PV2012 coming from working several years with CS3 ACR 4.6 curves & sliders, so I'm not proficient or familiar enough with the new processing tool's affects used in this discussion.

I have to use (+) settings with ACR 4.6's Clarity slider quite a bit, but started to force myself to use the Parametric curve instead to get a similar effect while setting the Point Curve linear and Black to zero, switching back and forth between small increases to Contrast and Clarity.

Some images I've worked too much on where I've ended up with +90-100 Clarity. Switch back to Default settings and wonder what the heck I was thinking.
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fike

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Yes, I totally agree. Any examples from you to come?

Touche!

It is hard to motivate oneself to post screwed-up example photos.  THAT doesn't reflect well on one's talent.  Let me look around.  When I started this topic, I was really looking for pics to disprove my hypothesis not to show examples of how those adjustments can ruin a perfectly good image--I can see that.  Of course, some of this is a matter of style. I don't do much low-contrast stuff. I like contrast.  That is my stylistic choice, so I would tend to go against the darkening whites or lightening blacks stuff I posted.  But as I try to extend myself photographically, I am always looking for new ways to interpret a scene.  For example, I like fog a lot, but while I can resist the temptation to push for a tonal curve that almost approaches foggy white, I really feel the need to get a bit of black in there. I wouldn't have produced that fine picture that Peter showed.  Not my style.
« Last Edit: July 09, 2013, 10:36:24 am by fike »
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Richowens

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Ok Marc, here is one with negative clarity(-6) and a healthy dose of + black(56) in PV2010.

In PV202 the black goes to -13.

http://richowens.smugmug.com/Travel/Bodega-09/i-6Znxm73/0/L/_DSC7240-L.jpg

I also use negative clarity when I want that warm/humid look. This one has -60 clarity, -8 whites and -3 blacks.

http://richowens.smugmug.com/Landscapes/Favorites/i-HfHTnTK/0/L/grove-89264753-O-L.jpg

Rich
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Tim Lookingbill

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Touche!

It is hard to motivate oneself to post screwed-up example photos.  THAT doesn't reflect well on one's talent.  Let me look around.  When I started this topic, I was really looking for pics to disprove my hypothesis not to show examples of how those adjustments can ruin a perfectly good image--I can see that.  Of course, some of this is a matter of style. I don't do much low-contrast stuff. I like contrast.  That is my stylistic choice, so I would tend to go against the darkening whites or lightening blacks stuff I posted.  But as I try to extend myself photographically, I am always looking for new ways to interpret a scene.  For example, I like fog a lot, but while I can resist the temptation to push for a tonal curve that almost approaches foggy white, I really feel the need to get a bit of black in there. I wouldn't have produced that fine picture that Peter showed.  Not my style.

My response wasn't meant as a "Touche!" to you, Fike.

It was to get you to show us what the heck you're talking about. I don't understand why photographers seem to have an aversion to posting their images in forums discussing photography issues.

Is this some kind of ego thing because they want to avoid criticism? piracy? WTF!

This isn't aimed specifically at you, Fike. It's like this in every freakin' photography forum discussion aimed at proving some point or another about how we see and edit photos.

I don't seem to have a problem with posting my images to prove a point but the majority here and in other web forums do. It doesn't make any sense.

I get more uploaded images at AVSforums/HardForums that obsess to the extreme about calibrating 60" HDtvs than I see on photography forums anywhere else. Explain that!
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Schewe

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It was to get you to show us what the heck you're talking about. I don't understand why photographers seem to have an aversion to posting their images in forums discussing photography issues.

Is this some kind of ego thing because they want to avoid criticism? piracy? WTF!

I suspect it's because processing, uploading and posting to a forum like this is a lot more work that simply writing an answer...
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fike

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I suspect it's because processing, uploading and posting to a forum like this is a lot more work that simply writing an answer...

I think as we grow in skill and become more confident that we are reasonably accomplished photographers, we realize that every image we put "out there" is used to judge us as craftsmen (artists, photographers, visionaries, whatever we like to call ourselves).  I publish less today than I did five years ago because my standards have been raised while my productivity hasn't been raised as much.  Posting a crummy sample photo to make a point on a forum seems a bad idea. 

I am not suggesting this is a good thing, but I think it is an issue for those of us who deign to be taken seriously.

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