Zeroed Defaults vs. Zeroed RAW File?

Question

It occurs to me that, while the new 0 values are a welcome change for the defaults (more intuitive than what appeared arbitray before), there is a limitation: how do I display a zeroed, uncorrected RAW file?  The LR4 zero'ing would appear to be similar to the previous LR defaults (allowing for changes in the process version), just with a more logical starting point; there is still an inherent adjustment, no?  But what if I want to start at the flat RAW file.  This would include contrast adjustments at the tonal curve (is the new linear the old medium?).

Answer 1

MadManChan2000 wrote:
My claim is that an image that looks pretty good to your eyes is the right starting point. 
But one has to know why that image looks "pretty good". If one does not and is not able to get it too look really good then the reason could be that one is not aware about the fact that the starting point already contained some edits that one would not have made this way initially.
This issue obviously becomes worse, if the starting point is adaptive, i.e., if LR4 choses some initial settings depending on the image (-> e.g., auto black point). Then undoing those initial adjustments becomes even harder.
Earlier you wrote "I don't think there's anything special or magical about the unrendered scene-referred state, from the point of view of adjusting an image." With all due respect, but that does not mean that others would not benefit from being able to start from a truly clean slate. Of course an image rendered with truly neutral develop settings will look bad. But one then knows which adjustments are required, because one isn't fooled by some unknown default adjustments which in the worst case are even depending on the individual image. One then does not waste time trying to make the image look good by going a wrong route. One does not waste time by trying to find the true neutral starting point, i.e., undoing the auto/implicit adjustments without any way of knowing what they were and with what intensity they have been applied.
On the one hand I can see how the new approach is meant to be helpful. On the other hand, I'm strongly arguing for making it possible for power users to disable any auto adjustments and see what is actually happening rather than be given an oversimplified picture (e.g., be shown a "linear" curve where the real curve is anything but linear).
If no default settings work for every user, why not use a truly neutral default? It will work for a subset, just as any other. You'll get the "My image previews change from 'great' to 'flat' looking during imports" comment with non-neutral defaults anyhow. You can make canned non-neutral defaults available, but let users see in what way they are not neutral, i.e., show a "medium contrast" curve instead of (implicitly) pretending there is no adjustment to the tone curve.
Finally, if the initial motivation was alignment with JPG defaults, why not make the JPG defaults non-zero? If you must lie to the user about setting values, why not give the RAW shooters the true picture ("zero" means zero) and the JPG shooters the lie? This way, the lie wouldn't be as bad because a JPG will have some adjustments baked in. They will not correspond to the non-zero default values LR would be showing but at least there would be some correspondence. I personally would prefer to let "zero" mean "zero" everywhere and would not care that JPG defaults are different to RAW defaults, but if you must lie, I reckon the JPG shooters would mind less.
P.S.: The same discussion is taking place here: http://forums.adobe.com/thread/946966?tstart=0