Option for Aggresive tone curve

I REALLY like the tone curve control in LR. However....I have become quite adept at using a traditional tone curve very aggressively. I would like to suggest the following change to the tone curve:
Keep it as it is, BUT put a control next to it, that if selected, will allow for traditional point type curve control with no "Safety" limits. Some times I need to be more aggressive with my curves to get the desired look. I am not talking about a solarized/negative/cross processed look (though that would be one use). I just need to be able to really separate tones some times and the current tools can be a bit restricting

You'll have to forgive me for sounding a bit novice in what I'm about to say, but, keep in mind that I work with 16-bit film scans, not digital camera RAWs...
LR looks exactly like ACR 4 (not sure which one was the chicken or the egg, since I've never used ACR before), so, my next question is...
If they ported pretty much everything over from ACR (or the other way 'round), why couldn't they have also ported over the ability to adjust points on the Tone Curve?! And given that LR *can* work with point Tone Curve presets, isn't it really just a matter of enabling it at this point, or just porting over from ACR 4?
Editing the endpoints would be extremely essential for blown-out highlights in my film scans...
-Rishi

Similar Messages

Color option of the Tone Curve of LR 5.2?

Where is it? It was there in 5.0 and 4.4.

You have to click on the curve icon at the bottom right of the Tone Curve panel

Tiny little tone curve idea

In the tone curve one has the three sliders on the bottom splitting the curve into shadows, darks, lights and highlights. The initial settings for the "tone curve regions" are 0-25, 25-50, 50-75 and 75-100.
What I would like to see, is an option to change this initial setting to be relative to the image tonality, not absolute 25/50/75 slider positions, but relative to the amount of different tones in the image. For example in a dark low key image the shadow region could initially be set to something like 0-15 - whatever amounts to 25% of the pixels in the image, and if there were only very little highlights, the righthandmost slider would be probably close to the middle initially, covering the lightest 25% of the pixels in the image.
Sure, I can do this now manually, but an automated option would be nice as I often want to start tweaking the curve with the "splitters" dividing the curve into regions each with roughly the same amount of pixels.

Extremely extremely MONEY for the flat film scans I bring over from VueScan.
All the image data is bunched up on the left side, and Tone Curve is useless until I start varying the split point sliders.
An automated feature for this would be extremely useful.
-Rishi

Abandon the Tone Curve?

I am finding that the new sliders in LR4 are extremely effective. I am wondering if routine Tone Curve adjustments are helpful any more. How do you feel about using the Basic Sliders for adjustments, and not using the Tone Curve? What would I be giving up by abandoning the Tone Curve?

EricBier wrote:
Jeff,
... I am at a loss to achieve precision using the Tone Curve in Lightroom since any move affects the entire image creating undesireable effects in areas I am not focused on. If I do not go to Photoshop, I tend to use the Adjustment Brush or the Graduated Filter in Lightroom to affect different areas differently, after setting the Basic Sliders.
In general, you are right--I find it best to go to PS for localized tone curve adjustments. But there are a surprising number of special cases where judicious maipulation of the LR curve can affect only the area you want affected.
For example, its an easy matter to bring out sky detail when photographing dark aircraft from below by increasing the curve slope in the bright region and restoring the curve shape at the mid and dark tones. This basically increases sky contrast (and detail) in a way that is not possible with other LR adjustments.
For the last few years I've been teaching a Photoshop class that emphasizes curves techniques like that in PS. I'm a new LR user and was surprised at how many images can be improved even without masks and with the relatively crude curve adjustments of LR.

Lr3 Tone curve Tutorials ?

I've done some googles for Tone Curve Tutorials but have not had much luck finding much - can you folks point me to some well explained or 'good' ones please?
Thank-you ~

Ian, thanks a lot for your interest in my problem.
Ian Lyons wrote:
Not sure what your issue issue because you can place as many or a few points on the Point Curve as you need to maintain control.
My problem is that the global effect a single point move entails forces me to use a large number of points. In order to adjust a local region (e.g., lift a small range of the midtones but leave everything else the same), I have to use at least seven points. Try this:
Start from a straight, unedited curve.
Insert a point at ~36.9 (X-axis) and move it up to 50% (Y-axis)
Insert a point at ~67.8 and move it down to 50%
Insert another point at ~50 (between the first two) and keep moving it up and down from 20% to 80%; watch the shape of the overall curve while doing this.
See how the "highlights" and "blacks" parts of the curve are heaviliy influenced while you are moving that middle point? Because of this, I find myself putting in more and more points to stop areas I don't want to see affected from changing shape. Try yourself to insert points to stop the local effect you want to achieve from having a global effect. You'll find that your additional "stop the effect"-points will themselves cause a non-local effect that you'll have to stop with further "stop"-points, etc.
I do realise that the tone curve needs to be smooth (mathematically, there shouldn't be any discontinuities in its first-order, or even second-order, derivation). I therefore understand the rationale of using splines and I also realise that LR is not the only program handling tone curves this way. However, I think the effect of moving one point is too global (i.e., non-local).
Still assuming the scenario above, try to put two "stop the global effect"-points at ~78/78 and 88/88 (in an attempt to have the highlight region unaffected by moving the point at 50. Then go back to step 4, i.e., move the point at 50 up and down. See how the shape of the curve between 88 and 100 still changes with large moves of the point at 50? That effect is completely unnecessary to make the curve smooth. It is just a side effect of using a particular kind of spline for the tone curve.
I hope I better expressed myself this time. Please let me know if a screenshot would help. It would be great if you could try the scenario and see whether you agree that some of the non-local effects are not really what the image editor intends.
P.S.: For recreating effects similar to that of the parametric control in a more precise way, I agree that the point edit mode works well. It is the "adjust small ranges of tonal shades" use case where it fails. I don't need the latter often but when I do, using the points is very laborious and often I feel like stopping before I got what I wanted because it is just too much of a hassle to fight all the ripple through effects.

Tone curve fix

where is that fix for the tone curves? I assume to 4.1rc doesn't retroactively fix this

B r e t t wrote:
nice, way to go Adobe
when it says the RC runs out in June, how would that affect using it to fix this?
Not at all. Another version will be out before then, even if it's another RC.

Tone curve - please bring back sliders, Canon DPP software just as clumsy!

Please bring back sliders for the tone curve beta 4 in this respect is now just as awkward and clumsy to operate in this respect as Canon DPP!

You can change from parametric to point curve mode yourself with the lower-right icon in the tone curve.

DNG Profile Editor Tone Curve

I was trying to see how useful PE might be in modifying the tone curve at the 255,255 end to fix some nearly overexposed areas but it was not all that successful.
It seemed to me that this was because the tone curve is expressed in 8 bit data and it purposely does not allow control points above 251 which makes it more or less useless for that purpose.
Some kind of expanded scale in the neighbourhood of 255,255 would be useful. The object is to modify the slope and curvature in that range without greatly effecting the major part of the curve.
Yes one can put a control point at (251, 140) for example but there is nearly no control of the curvature or anything else for that matter.
The kind of thing I was thinking of was an almost straight line from 0,0 to 220, 160 (for example) then some fine control between that and 255,255.
(for a tone curve based on camera raw default)
John

You should really be using negative exposure compensation to handle this, instead of the tone curve.

Clarity slider and tone curve in LR4

Why does the clarity slider seem different to me in LR4 (4.1 RC actually)? IN LR3 I loved that thing. I would ramp it up quite a bit with many photos. It would give it a nice crisp look. Now it seems as if it just makes my shots look like they have too much contrast. Also, when using the clarity brush, many times it seems as if where I paint it on it actually lightens it up. I havce had to look as see if I had the exposure tool on instead.
Also, I swear a "medium contrast" tone curve setting is different now as well. This was the default setting in LR3. Now default is linear. But if I apply a medium curve from the drop down, it looks over cooked? What the heck? Are these things just me? BTW I am working RAW files. Thanks

If you want a PV2010 linear tone curve for PV2012, using the DNG Profile Editor (DPE):
* convert any raw file to DNG (if not already DNG)
* load it into the DPE
* Edit things if you want, except for the tone curve.
* Save the recipe.
* Load it (dcpr file) into a text editor.
* Replace the tone curve with this:
<dngclr:ToneCurve rdf:parseType="Resource">
<dngclr:Edit0 rdf:parseType="Resource">
<dngclr:X>0</dngclr:X>
<dngclr:Y>0</dngclr:Y>
</dngclr:Edit0>
<dngclr:Edit1 rdf:parseType="Resource">
<dngclr:X>17</dngclr:X>
<dngclr:Y>26</dngclr:Y>
</dngclr:Edit1>
<dngclr:Edit2 rdf:parseType="Resource">
<dngclr:X>34</dngclr:X>
<dngclr:Y>44</dngclr:Y>
</dngclr:Edit2>
<dngclr:Edit3 rdf:parseType="Resource">
<dngclr:X>51</dngclr:X>
<dngclr:Y>60</dngclr:Y>
</dngclr:Edit3>
<dngclr:Edit4 rdf:parseType="Resource">
<dngclr:X>68</dngclr:X>
<dngclr:Y>74</dngclr:Y>
</dngclr:Edit4>
<dngclr:Edit5 rdf:parseType="Resource">
<dngclr:X>85</dngclr:X>
<dngclr:Y>89</dngclr:Y>
</dngclr:Edit5>
<dngclr:Edit6 rdf:parseType="Resource">
<dngclr:X>102</dngclr:X>
<dngclr:Y>105</dngclr:Y>
</dngclr:Edit6>
<dngclr:Edit7 rdf:parseType="Resource">
<dngclr:X>119</dngclr:X>
<dngclr:Y>120</dngclr:Y>
</dngclr:Edit7>
<dngclr:Edit8 rdf:parseType="Resource">
<dngclr:X>136</dngclr:X>
<dngclr:Y>135</dngclr:Y>
</dngclr:Edit8>
<dngclr:Edit9 rdf:parseType="Resource">
<dngclr:X>153</dngclr:X>
<dngclr:Y>151</dngclr:Y>
</dngclr:Edit9>
<dngclr:Edit10 rdf:parseType="Resource">
<dngclr:X>170</dngclr:X>
<dngclr:Y>167</dngclr:Y>
</dngclr:Edit10>
<dngclr:Edit11 rdf:parseType="Resource">
<dngclr:X>187</dngclr:X>
<dngclr:Y>183</dngclr:Y>
</dngclr:Edit11>
<dngclr:Edit12 rdf:parseType="Resource">
<dngclr:X>204</dngclr:X>
<dngclr:Y>200</dngclr:Y>
</dngclr:Edit12>
<dngclr:Edit13 rdf:parseType="Resource">
<dngclr:X>221</dngclr:X>
<dngclr:Y>218</dngclr:Y>
</dngclr:Edit13>
<dngclr:Edit14 rdf:parseType="Resource">
<dngclr:X>238</dngclr:X>
<dngclr:Y>236</dngclr:Y>
</dngclr:Edit14>
<dngclr:Edit15 rdf:parseType="Resource">
<dngclr:X>255</dngclr:X>
<dngclr:Y>255</dngclr:Y>
</dngclr:Edit15>
</dngclr:ToneCurve>
* Re-save the file in your text editor
* Re-load the changed recipe in DPE
* Export a profile with a tone curve equivalent to PV2010 linear.
Note: The tone/point curve in Lightroom will not have any points on it that way.
PS - This procedure assumes you will be using the "Base Profile" for "Base Tone Curve" in order to achieve equivalence with PV2010 linear in PV2012 (for the same Cam-cal profile(s)). If what you want is a truly linear tone curve, select "Linear" as "Base Tone Curve".
Rob

I am working in the Develop module of Lightroom 5 and have accidentally bumped a setting and lost the Basic menu and the option to retrieve it. "Tone curve" is directly under the tool bar now. How can I retrieve the "Basic" menu?

How can I retrieve the "Basic" menu on Lightroom 5? I accidentally bumped something while working in the Develop module of Lightroom 5, and now the Tone Curve menu is directly under the Tool Bar, with no option to click on "Basic."

Right-click on Tone Curve and choose basic again or press Ctrl+1 in Develop.
On Mac (Control-Click or Cmd+1)

Adobe Standard profile for 5D mark II includes tone curve?

In ACR, I see a "Point" tone curve with the "Adobe Standard" profile on Canon 5d Mark II files.
I've never seen a tone curve before on standard profiles for other cameras. I understand that tone curves are included in the camera standard, faithful, portrait and landscape profiles in attempt to match the in-camera jpegs. But I thought the Adobe Standard profiles were supposed to target only color (hue/sat) and leave tone up to the user.
Can someone verify that your system includes a point tone curve on 5D2 raws. Maybe my config is messed up.

Dear Eric,
I have Photoshop/Bridge CS3 and Camera Raw Version 4.5.0.175 on Windows XP (SP2).
To "see" tone curves I launch Bridge, navigate to a folder, double-click a raw or DNG file and get the ACR window.
In the ACR window, I click on the "Camera Calibration" tab and navigate through the various Camera Profiles.
For each profile, I click on the "Tone Curve" tab and view both the "Parametric" and "Point" curves.
For canon 5D Mark II DNG files there is always a "Medium Contrast" Point Curve, under every camera profile. I do not have a Canon 1Ds Mark III, but I have downloaded a sample raw file and converted it to DNG. For this DNG I also see a Medium Contrast Point Curve under every profile.
For my Canon 20D and Canon 1Ds raw or DNG files the Point and Parametric curves are flat under every camera profile.
When I downloaded the latest DNG converter and DNG Profile Editor, I'm reasonably confident I also downloaded and installed the most current camera profiles.
For Canon 5D2 files I see the following profiles: Adobe Standard, Camera Faithful, Camera Landscape, Camera Neutral, Camera Portrait, and Camera Standard, in that order.
For the Canon 1DS Mark III image I see all those profiles, plus ACR 4.4 and ACR 4.3
For Canon 20D files I see all those profiles, plus ACR 4.4 and ACR 2.4
To make sure I'm not picking up any presets, I have invoked the pop-up menu in ACR and selected "Reset Camera Raw Defaults". Then, for each file viewed in ACR I checked the pop-up menu again to make sure "Camera Raw Defaults" was checked.
And a reminder, all this was after I had created a number of custom profiles from Macbeth Color Checker images using the DNG Profile Editor. Those custom profiles created a problem with Bridge previews, so I removed all of them before viewing Point Curves as described above. Still hoping to get some feedback on the Bridge preview problem I described in this message:
http://www.adobeforums.com/webx/.3bb6a869.59b790c8

LR4.1 - Tone Curve - how to adjust individual RGB channels?

Hi,
I am having trouble figuring out how to adjust the curve of individual RGB channels. I am assuming the LR4 Tone Curve works like the PS Curves dialog with the channel dropdown.
The LR4.1 Help says:
To make adjustments to individual points on the tone curve, choose an option from the Point Curve menu, click the Edit Point Curve button , and do any of the following:
Choose an option from the Channel pop-up menu. You can edit all three channels at once, or choose to edit the Red, Green, or Blue channel individually.
When I click the little icon in the lower right corner of the Tone Curve panel, the panel shrinks so that I don't see the Regions sliders. If I click again, they are visible again. I can't find where to select one of the three indvidual channels.
The Help refers to "the Point Curve menu." Where is the Point Curve menu? Is the Point Curve different from the Tone Curve?
If I right-click (Windows) in the curve dialog, the context menu has a Show Info option. I click it on/off and don't see any change or any info. Where should I be looking for info?
Thanks for any help here.
John

Good morning John,
The point curve is the one without the sliders. The adjustments for the individual channels are only available with
PV2012. You must be editing a file with PV2010 or 2003. When in PV2012 you will see " Channels: RGB" below the curve window. Click on the doule triangles following the RGB
to pick the individual channel.
HTH
Rich

How do I set a preset in LR to import all files from my computer with a Medium Tone Curve?

I edit a file in PS, and LR informs me that the "metadata for the file has been changed." I opt for import settings from disk (my changes), but in doing so the file is always rendered with a linear tone curve. What I am seeking is to have the file that I've been working on PS, be with the same rendering in LR.
Thank you,
S

I just followed your workflow. In other words I used the "edit in" option to send an image to Photoshop where I made a significant change in the tone curve. Then I saved that image, which returned to Lightroom. The Lightroom tone curve still displayed as a linear curve. In other words it didn't reflect the changes that I made in Photoshop. However the image itself displayed the changes that were made. So apparently saving your PSD in Photoshop will not force Lightroom to display the Photoshop changes. As far as Lightroom is concerned, that is the new linear curve. The only curve adjustments you will see in Lightroom are the ones made using Lightroom.
To summarize what I'm trying to say, whatever you change the curve to in Photoshop becomes the linear curve in Lightroom. Sorry that I am so poor with words sometimes.

Which do you prefer: Increasing exposure or adjusting the tone curve?

I'd like to know how people here handle their images.
I use a Nikon D7100 in camera RAW. In camera my images are always in balance. In LR, if I select Auto Tone in Basics invariably it will adjust the exposure. I tend to adjust exposure near last in my workflow because I assume my camera had the exposure setting right. When I feel I need to adjust the exposure my first stop is the Tone Curve. I'm wondering a couple of things:
1) I know we edit by the specifics of each photo, but generally do you make adjustments to Exposure or the Tone Curve first?
2) Is there a reason or a time to prefer one over the other?
Thanks,

My recommendation:
(note: I am interpreting "exposure", in your question, to mean "dynamic range at right wall of histogram", i.e. white point)
Adjust basics exposure first (before tone/point curve), but note: you may not be able to go all the way using the exposure slider. Next stop (if necessary): +whites, but note: it may not be optimal to go all the way using whites. Final stop (if necessary): cinch in the the exposure by dragging white point to the left via the point curve.
Rationale: basics have some intelligence and magic that tone curve does not. If you do tone curve first, you've missed some opportunities..
Still a begging question: how much exposure vs. whites vs. tone curve (point curve).
Note: go easy on the contrast at first, and assure blacks are sufficiently seated using blacks slider (and maybe tone/point curve).
Likewise, cranking whites up will increase global contrast, so if you take a shot at blacks and whites before contrast, then you may avoid a common mistake: radically wrong contrast due to adjusting before establishing ballpark black & white slider values.
Anyway, be aware that increased PV2012 exposure (and/or whites) is designed to be used with -highlights (note: there is no "brightness" slider), and to avoid making things too washed out (or over-jamming the highlights) it may be desirable to substitute +whites and/or +shadows for some +exposure.
Note: tones may gang up (on the right side of the histogram) in a non-optimal way when using +exposure and/or +whites, in which case it may be better to use point curve for white point adjustment (e.g. leftward drag). For example, sometimes the whites will be overly compressed if you don't bring white point in on the curve instead.
Rules of thumb:
Most of my normal photos end up with:
+exposure (to fully brighten)
+whites (for full dynamic range without excessive exposure setting)
-highlights (for dialing back +exposure and/or +whites)
+shadows (so -blacks and doesn't leave image with overly dark shadows)
-blacks (for full dynamic range without needing as much contrast)
*contrast: depends - if overly contrasty to begin with (or a lot of -blacks and/or +whites are employed), this usually gets dialed back; if underly contrasty to begin with (or +blacks and/or -whites have been employed), this usually gets bumped up.
(for abnormal photos or when desiring abnormal results - anything goes..).
Other common mistakes (in addition to wrong contrast and/or non-optimal balance between exposure & whites..):
trying to recover highlights via -whites. try -highlights (and maybe +whites) before -whites.
Warning signs:
if you have very high values for +shadows and -highlights, you may have contrast set too high.
if you have a positive value for highlights, you may have contrast/exposure/whites too low.
if you have a negative value for shadows, you may have contrast too low, or blacks/exposure too high.
Miscellaneous:
Try +clarity and +saturation (and/or +vibrance) to pump it up, if reduced contrast and/or increased exposure has left it looking a little washed out.. (likewise, -saturation if +contrast has left it looking a little too "rich"..).
You already know this, but for the sake of completeness (and other readers): you can learn by clicking 'Auto Tone' "button". You may need to dial back the exposure afterward etc. but it can be very educational none-the-less..
Of course, you can always fine-tune tone using tone curve (e.g. if image is just way overbright, like some snow shots, try tugging the midpoint downward..).
Don't forget the locals for final spot toning.
In case you haven't gleaned yet, adjusting via PV2012 is not the same as you might think at first - you don't just set exposure/black/white points and leave them, and then adjust everything else. e.g. -highlights pulls white point down more than -whites does (but +whites brings white point back up, which means you usually need to adjust in tandem..), so be prepared for a lot of back n' forth, to lessen with experience..
PS - There are tutorial videos galore, but at the risk of opposing Adobe and their sycophants, be forewarned: some are geared to how they wished PV2012 was (simple), and not to how it really is (interdependent image-dependent settings..) - examples:
top-down is touted, but that ignores black/white point issues which can lead to radically wrong contrast (and/or exposure) setting.
often, adjustment of blacks is considered optional/fine-tuning, but blacks sometimes need large value adjustment, and dramatically impacts contrast & shadow brightness..
often, adjustment of whites is considered optional/fine-tuning, but sometimes optimal toning can only be had by using a large whites value adjustment, which dramatically impacts contrast, and exposure..
cteavin wrote:
I tend to adjust exposure near last in my workflow because I assume my camera had the exposure setting right.
In case not clear yet, adjusting exposure and/or whites (and/or white point on curve) and all the rest is often done to turn an image "with potential" into a very nice image, not just to compensate for in-camera exposure imperfection. I have lots of under-exposed images that end with -exposure (granted, usually +whites), and vice-versas.. That said, if you don't know whether to crank it up or down, there is something to be said for passing until you do..
Lastly, for emphasis: exposure slider is an intelligent slider. It behaves more like normal exposure adjusters at lower values, and more like brightness adjusters at higher values (has clipping protection and highlight roll-off logic which kicks in as you crank it up..). So, it's a mistake to think of adjusting it just to make up for non-optimal camera exposure setting.
Sorry for verbose answer, but there is really no short answer which doesn't run the risk of being bad advice: best way to adjust "exposure" depends...
Cheers,
Rob

Lightroom 5 Tone Curve

Hey i m really a newbie to lightroom 5 and i sometimes come across a issue while using a tone curve ... that for some images the Tone curve displays "Channel" options and for some not ... my question is how to make it visible for all images .. please help ..and thanks

Make sure the process version on the image is set to 2012. Look in Camera Calibration.

Option for Aggresive tone curve

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