RAW help part 2

[jrg]

Well, I managed to update and can now use all RAW files from my newer cameras (Camera RAW 9.0).

Old habits, however, die hard. Olympus cameras have the distinction of usually getting things right in JPEG, now as I turn to RAW I have to reorganize my approach. I've always started any pic editing going to "levels" and adjusting here. Then I sharpen accordingly if needed and top things off with "curves". I'm not a post-editing PS addict, I'm old school, shot a lot of chrome, and assume I should have gotten things right when I hit the shutter button. Nonetheless, digital is digital and you have to do what you have to do in PS. My question? I can't find anything similar to "levels" in the RAW editing box. Curves, sharpening, color balance, noise reduction, everything's there except the "levels" option. The closest effect I can get is adjusting "blacks" in Basic.

Advice? Tips? Counsel?

 

[Joachim B]

Second tab in the ACR edit menu is 'curves', that's Levels with added benefits. What exactly did you do in the PS levels dialog that you want to reproduce?

Mostly you should be fine using the Exposure, Contrast and Clarity sliders. If these don't get the result you like, maybe you shot the picture wrong initially?

 

[mclewis]

The Blacks slider sets the black point.
The Whites slider sets the whitepoint.
The Shadows slider brightens or darkens the darker tones.
The Highlights slider brightens or darkens the bright tones and is used for highlights recovery.

It's generally recommended to adjust the sliders to taste before fiddling with the curves but you don't have to.

The curves (in ACR and PS) can be used to adjust white and black points and contrast.

 

[jrg]

As stated in my OP, I know where the "curves" option is and I wouldn't even bother addressing a pic if it hadn't been shot correctly. As to what I'm doing with the PS levels, I'm simply addressing the "histograph-scale" and taking the highlights and shadow points out of their plateaus. It's always worked. I tried your suggestion with exposure, contrast and clarity (I had semi-tried this before but not as a threesome) and this gets the results closest to what I want but not 100%. I think I need to add saturation to get the same thing.

The curves may be an added plus here compared to PS but to be honest, it's almost too much. I'm not a technophile and I work by instinct and how things look. I'm good at photo-shopping a picture and morphing but the actual technology and theory itself still presents for me a large learning curve. (No pun intended.)

 

[Joachim B]

There is another way. If you look at the curves dialog, you can see two tabs. The standard is 'parametric', and the other one is 'point'. Click that last one. You will see a curve histogram with a diagonal line trough it. You can grab the endpoints of that line and pull them inwards horizontally untill they reach the point where the histogram starts filling up. That way it behaves the same as pulling in the swatches from the Levels tool.

If you pull them vertically instead of horizontally, it's the same as using the output value slider in the PS Levels tool. And if you click in the centre and start pulling the line into a curve it's like moving the midpoint gray slider in the Levels tool.

It's kinda simple. The bottom represents the input values (black on the left, white on the right), and the vertical represents the output value after application of the curve (black on the bottom, white on top). The line or curve you are drawing is the translation from the input to the output. The levels tool works the same way, but is presented to you differently. You are still shifting points to get from a certain input to a certain output.

 

[jrg]

Yes, this is closer to what I'm familiar with and I can more easily flow with it. This and the other approach you suggested get me closer to the mark but not entirely. It gives me something different and, with a little tweaking, something even possibly better. We'll see. I need to play more with it and, again, you're dealing with an old dinosaur creature of habit.

Because Olympus has such good jpeg results and because I had no real access to converting to RAW I relied when in a corner, since I shoot a lot of high ISO stuff, on Neat Image. It still could not save some photos, particularly and primarily stuff shot under fluorescent lights. As fate would have it, when I slipped accidentally by chance into RAW on my old EP-2, I was shooting in a hair salon. The results were enough where I normally would chuck the shots, a case where I just didn’t get it right in the camera. However, now with access to RAW I tried saving the shots. Much to my amazement, I was very much able to do so.

I have dozens of questions about RAW but I need to experiment more first. Thanks for the input.

 

[Sailor Blue]

Hover over the histogram above the Basic Panel and you will see the area you are hovering over lighten and the name for slider for that area get brighter. You can click and drag on the Histogram or on the slider.

The Basic Panel sliders are all you need for tonal changes for most images.

Try this scheme for adjusting your images. It is a modification of the 5-step tango by Jack Davis.

CreativeLive - Jack Davis - The Five Step Tango Global Optimizing Images in Lightroom - Cost $29

Five Step Tango for Lightroom by Jack Davis with Modifications

1. X-Rite ColorChecker Passport Camera Calibration and/or WB then Crop

2. Auto - With a bit of tweaking this works about 80% of the time for "normal" images. If you don't like the results just smile and tweak the results or just hit Undo and make the adjustments manually.

3. Exposure - Adjust this for the mid-tones, not the highlights or shadows.

4. Check or set the Whites and/or Blacks by using Shift plus double clicking Whites and/or Blacks. You can also hold down the Alt (Option) key while moving the sliders - this will display only the pixels that are pure white or pure black as appropriate.

5. Clarity
Shadows
Highlights

6. Vibrance
Contrast if necessary

7. HSL - rarely

8. Sharpening
Noise Reduction - rarely

9. Lens Corrections

10. Post-Crop Vignetting or Radial Gradient Filter for Vignetting
Grain - rarely

11. Edit in Photoshop as needed.

Here is a good tutorial on sharpening.

Sharpening in Lightroom Part One — Overview and Capture Sharpening | Laura Shoe's Lightroom Training, Tutorials and Tips

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Living and loving it in Pattaya, Thailand. Canon 7D - See the gear list for the rest.