Anybody using the adaptive color feature in Lightroom for landscape images?

I have just started experimenting with this Ai feature and am initially quite impressed for landscape images.

I made two virtual copies of a RAW file - The first image is using the standard Lightroom Adobe Color setting, the second one is using the Adobe Adaptive Color setting.

I adjust both images only using the basic sliders, (no masking) aiming for a consistent exposure on the mountain in both pictures. You can see in the Adaptive Color image the moon holds more detail.

I included the Lightroom slider edits for both, you can see in the first I had to raise the shadow details much higher to get the mountains to match, raising the exposure setting would have blown out the moon even more.

I'm still experimenting with it, but so far this appears to be a real benefit to anyone, but especially to us M43 users who suffer from dynamic range envy of full frame users.

I'm not sure scientifically exactly how you would quantify the extra dynamic range? Perhaps a full stop? At least 1/2 stop?





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Thanks,
Mike

I've been using it for a while now in ACR for Photoshop. It is surprisingly good for creating a very quick initial image. As you have implied, it usually needs to have the shadows slider increased quite a bit and sometimes a touch of exposure increase is needed, but the improvement in tonal quality and color enhancement saves a lot of time in Ps. It gives you a great baseline for tweaking individual elements.

Have you tried the new "select subject" in the Ps Beta?

ajscullard said:

I've been using it for a while now in ACR for Photoshop. It is surprisingly good for creating a very quick initial image. As you have implied, it usually needs to have the shadows slider increased quite a bit and sometimes a touch of exposure increase is needed, but the improvement in tonal quality and color enhancement saves a lot of time in Ps. It gives you a great baseline for tweaking individual elements.

Have you tried the new "select subject" in the Ps Beta?

Click to expand...

I'm not even sure what select subject is, you'll have to explain it. Not surprising since you're indicating it's in beta, since I'm typically discovering these new features long after everyone else, as my post processing software sits idle until after returns from travel then I open it up to edit my new photos from the trip and find out a new feature has been added.

I am still in the evaluation phase ; as I did not have the latest software until recently.

I have one image that I am currently editing where it seems to do a great job.

The photo is one I bracketed so I cannot recall right now if it did a great job at shadow recover or highlight recovery ; was one of the 2. Is of animals as the subject with a bright sky background.

At first I was very impressed but a couple additional minor steps to the image as I would normally do and now that I review the current image as it stands I have some bothersome to me halo edges where the subject meets the sky under close inspection that will likely worsen if I apply more edits on top.

In your image example I see the same thing starting.

Correctable but I have no doubt the Adaptive Color is doing something that caused it or at least in combination with other edits ; this gives me pause from using it on other images.

I use Adobe Standard or Adobe Color most all the time. Adobe Landscape usually gives me some unnatural colors despite the images being landscapes.

I had reviewed a few dozen images with the various profiles and this one image was the only one that stood out to me as noticeably better with the Adaptive Color Profile.

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Online Gallery here
https://www.mattreynoldsphotography.com/

mfinley said:

ajscullard said:

I've been using it for a while now in ACR for Photoshop. It is surprisingly good for creating a very quick initial image. As you have implied, it usually needs to have the shadows slider increased quite a bit and sometimes a touch of exposure increase is needed, but the improvement in tonal quality and color enhancement saves a lot of time in Ps. It gives you a great baseline for tweaking individual elements.

Have you tried the new "select subject" in the Ps Beta?

Click to expand...

I'm not even sure what select subject is, you'll have to explain it. Not surprising since you're indicating it's in beta, since I'm typically discovering these new features long after everyone else, as my post processing software sits idle until after returns from travel then I open it up to edit my new photos from the trip and find out a new feature has been added.

Click to expand...

I would think he is talking about...

If you go to the selection tool there is now a select subject option. Instead of the normal selection tool which you use to draw lines, you use this tool to draw a box around your subject of choice. It uses Ai to identify parts of your image ; useful for creating masks. You may have to have "cloud on" for it to work best. Can make some intricate selections of trees, houses and similar things.

I feel like this was introduced a couple PS updates ago. The most recent PS Beta has a completely brand new Hue/Saturation adjustment tool and I actually really like for giving colors a boost in images. Only had it a very short time but have yet to find an image where it could not help. I think people will love this new feature and it should roll out to regular PS very soon. To give you an idea I never used the old Saturation/Hue adjustment unless doing something very targeted, whereas this one can be used in moderation globally with good results.

--
Online Gallery here
https://www.mattreynoldsphotography.com/

I have not studied this in great detail yet but my first impressions are not conclusive.

When I toggle the two versions of the image that you posted I see the following:

* yes, there are definitely more details in the moon

* the AI version is more "contrasty"

* agree with Matt that the halos start to appear at the top of mountain range

The last one bothers me most; it usually happens when one applies global adjustments a little too aggressively... I have not the slightest idea what the AI does here - do they use global or local adjustments or a combination of both.

Will study it more but at this point I am too cautious to use it without fully understanding what it does. Will we ever know???

Thank for posting this Mike.

jacob

mreynolds767 said:

At first I was very impressed but a couple additional minor steps to the image as I would normally do and now that I review the current image as it stands I have some bothersome to me halo edges where the subject meets the sky under close inspection that will likely worsen if I apply more edits on top.

In your image example I see the same thing starting.

Click to expand...

I see it in both, the top one is adaptive color, the bottom is adobe color. Haloing and the Em-1iii seem to be a thing

jm10 said:

The last one bothers me most; it usually happens when one applies global adjustments a little too aggressively... I have not the slightest idea what the AI does here - do they use global or local adjustments or a combination of both.

Click to expand...

I posted above that I see it in both versions, could this be more about the sharpening that is being applied on import of the RAW file into lightroom?

mfinley said:

jm10 said:

The last one bothers me most; it usually happens when one applies global adjustments a little too aggressively... I have not the slightest idea what the AI does here - do they use global or local adjustments or a combination of both.

Click to expand...

I posted above that I see it in both versions, could this be more about the sharpening that is being applied on import of the RAW file into lightroom?

Click to expand...

Could be. I have no experience with M43 cameras.

Strange though that when you zoom in the haloing appears to be in both images, while in your original post at the top (unzoomed) it is considerably more obvious in the AI version...

mfinley said:

I'm not even sure what select subject is, you'll have to explain it. Not surprising since you're indicating it's in beta, since I'm typically discovering these new features long after everyone else, as my post processing software sits idle until after returns from travel then I open it up to edit my new photos from the trip and find out a new feature has been added.

Click to expand...

Sorry, I forgot you are using Lr(C?) , but there may be some option in Lr to select Sky, Subject, Color Range or Focus Area, similar to that available under the "select" tab in Ps.

The old version did a fairly good job, but for full accuracy, you had to use one of the brush options to clean it up. The new version does a much, much better job of the initial selection. The time saved is enormous.

I use it to subtly brighten the primary subject (e.g. a building, a boat or whatever) to help make it stand out from the background, or to modify contrast or color adjustment.

ajscullard said:

Sorry, I forgot you are using Lr(C?) , but there may be some option in Lr to select Sky, Subject, Color Range or Focus Area, similar to that available under the "select" tab in Ps.

The old version did a fairly good job, but for full accuracy, you had to use one of the brush options to clean it up. The new version does a much, much better job of the initial selection. The time saved is enormous.

I use it to subtly brighten the primary subject (e.g. a building, a boat or whatever) to help make it stand out from the background, or to modify contrast or color adjustment.

Click to expand...

Ah I see. Yes, LR has had select Sky, Subject, color range, luminous range for awhile, not sure if there have been improvements recently. I use them a often by combining with the intersect mask command, for instance in a cathedral interior I get mixed lighting with blue cast around windows and such so it's easy to brush those areas to select them while isolate any other natural blue in the image and then intersect with a color range mask and then reduce the blue cast in just those areas without effecting the blue colors elsewhere.

jm10 said:

mfinley said:

jm10 said:

The last one bothers me most; it usually happens when one applies global adjustments a little too aggressively... I have not the slightest idea what the AI does here - do they use global or local adjustments or a combination of both.

Click to expand...

I posted above that I see it in both versions, could this be more about the sharpening that is being applied on import of the RAW file into lightroom?

Click to expand...

Could be. I have no experience with M43 cameras.

Strange though that when you zoom in the haloing appears to be in both images, while in your original post at the top (unzoomed) it is considerably more obvious in the AI version...

Click to expand...

I think that might have something to do with how DPR affects your images when you upload them?

Reducing the default sharpening LR is doing on import affects the haloing...

mfinley said:

jm10 said:

mfinley said:

jm10 said:

The last one bothers me most; it usually happens when one applies global adjustments a little too aggressively... I have not the slightest idea what the AI does here - do they use global or local adjustments or a combination of both.

Click to expand...

I posted above that I see it in both versions, could this be more about the sharpening that is being applied on import of the RAW file into lightroom?

Click to expand...

Could be. I have no experience with M43 cameras.

Strange though that when you zoom in the haloing appears to be in both images, while in your original post at the top (unzoomed) it is considerably more obvious in the AI version...

Click to expand...

I think that might have something to do with how DPR affects your images when you upload them?

Reducing the default sharpening LR is doing on import affects the haloing...

Click to expand...

OK, it looks like no sharpening helps. And not only with haloing but with the amount of artifacts or noise in the sky.

So the conclusion could be if one decides to use the AI option, it has to be used with extra care: abrupt dark-to-light transitions are vulnerable. You don't need sharpening in the sky anyway. As ajscullard commented LR offers plenty of tools to implement local adjustments. A brush for example has the sharpening, texture, noise reduction and other features that allow to produce an image more pleasing to the eye.

Takes time though (not a huge problem when retired ). Maybe AI will get there some day...

mfinley said:

I have just started experimenting with this Ai feature and am initially quite impressed for landscape images.

Click to expand...

I don't love the current state of it, myself.

The concept has much promise, and it's version 1 / early days yet, so I'm excited to see if or where Adobe takes it over time. But right now the results feel sloppy and difficult to style, to me.

On a technical level my results with it often seem to suffer haloing and blooming artifacts.

And aesthetically, it can be kind of a mess: too much emphasis on evening-out local contrast or maximizing depicted dynamic range and detail, without an understanding of what you're depicting. Usually in the daylight, the sky of a landscape is considerably brighter and more luminous than the ground. Reverse that arrangement and you have, shall we say, a rather "abstract" depiction of something.

Part of it may be that I am stuck in a RAW conversion workflow of "the past," where the profile defines "the bones" of an image's tone-contrast-color and global sliders tweak that. It seems to me that Adobe imagines a future (or present!) workflow wherein the profile adaptively maximizes absolute dynamic range--however that might look aesthetically, good or bad or nonsense--and then you use AI subject masking to re-assert whatever "logic" of the image you have in mind: you pick the sky and edit the color / luminosity / tone of the sky; you pick the ground and edit the color / luminosity / tone of the ground, etcetera. It's a re-imagining of the role of the profile now that we have adaptive and AI masking, wherein the profile doesn't establish the foundations of tone or color, but rather maximizes the absolute "data" you have available to you, and then you go to town with Lightroom's many other available tools.

Of course the "proof" is in the quality of the result, and where we stand, TODAY, I still prefer the results I'm getting with the "workflow of the past" using Adobe Color, Adobe Standard, and other "static" third-party profiles, with AI-subject masking as a "tweak" rather than as a foundational tool to define an image's visual logic; but again, it's early. I'll be interested to see where this new approach goes and also how other photographers use it!