Before & After with B&W Setting
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It would be helpful it the Before side could maintain the Black and White setting. Comparing a B&W edit against its color original is not very useful.
Thanks.
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I understand your point, but you could say that about a number of other settings too. (For instance, it might be useful if before/after could maintain an adjusted white balance, while toggling everything else. Where would it stop?)
Here's an idea though. You can't use the black and white tool on a layer - it has to be done on the background layer. So you could use that to your advantage and do everything else (almost everything else anyway) on a layer or layers, temporarily resetting the layers tool for a before and after comparison. Not quite the same, I agree, but it would be a work-round if this is important to you.
Ian
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Michael,
Just because a tool exists does not mean that it is the only way to do something.
It is very easy to to comparisons between multiple variants at different levels of edit without using the recently supplied tool with it's engaging but limited comparison only to the original source file interpretation level.
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Thanks to your both for your suggestions. Perhaps I should have posed this as a question, is there a way using existing tools to do a before an after comparison maintaining the black and white background? Looking at variants or tuning off layers works to a point for me, I am really talking about side by side comparison.
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Sure.
Set your master variant (or a another variant of it) to B&W using your favoured method.
Create a Cloned variant (to start the next stage of processing from that point) and make the next changes.
Select both variants.
In the Viewer you can not use the arrow keys to switch between them in single view mode or use multi view mode to see then side by side. Multi view offers facilities to co-ordinate zooming and panning if required.
Repeat for additional variants as required - i.e. you can "freeze" the development work at various stages and retain visibility while continuing with further edit tests. Cloning a variant is useful at that point. There are Keyboard Shortcuts for both Clone and New variant creation. New goes right back to the base "master" level.
Of course you can create a NEW variant and re-apply the B&W tool to that at any point should you wish to take a completely different line - or maybe see what happens by de-saturating instead of using the B&W tool. The benefit there is that you can consider processing in monochrome using a layer or two if that would be especially useful.
I find using 3 variants - one "base" image and 2 further but different variants especially useful since the arrow key allow rapid comparison of each addition variant to the my base level variant OR to each other, pixel for pixel. at the press of an arrow key (or whatever equivalent option one may have available instead of the arrow keys.)
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Thanks SFA, I'll give that a try.
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I am modifying my request to be, have the option to preserve the background layer when viewing a before and after split screen.
SFA’s solution will work but it is a long way to go in my opinion when a simple checkbox option will accomplish what I am looking for. I am not discounting your idea SFA, I just think my suggestion is a simpler solution.
Ian, I think your comment about “where would it stop” is not really valid. Changing white balance or any of the other sliders can easily be evaluated by turning on and off a layer. Changing from color to black and white is a fundamental change to the image. It does not fall in to the same category of white balance, exposure etc.
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@Ian Wilson
You ask "Where would it stop?".
In my view, it should stop where the user specifies by referencing a specific editing stage in an image editing history.
Not wanting the B&W treatment to change is just a special case of wanting several editing steps not to change, in order to facilitate the evaluation of recent editing steps.
In Lightroom, a user can nominate any step in the image editing history as the "before" version and the latest evolution is always chosen as the "after" version. This enables meaningful "before/after" comparisons; the current C1 implementation is rather useless (unless one does minimal changes to images only).
P.S.: The approach proposed by SFA is a workaround which has several disadvantages:
- One has to create a variant ahead of time, i.e., one has to foresee that a certain editing stage will be used in future "before/after" comparisons. No doubt, this will either lead to superfluous variants that will not be used after all and/or missed editing stages.
- After the editing has been finalised, the comparison variants have to be manually deleted or else will remain as clutter.
C1's approach of always keeping variants together (in all albums/collections) and thus showing them everywhere (unless filtering of some kind is used) aggravates the latter issue.
0 - One has to create a variant ahead of time, i.e., one has to foresee that a certain editing stage will be used in future "before/after" comparisons. No doubt, this will either lead to superfluous variants that will not be used after all and/or missed editing stages.
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indeed - ACR / LR "before/after" implementation is absolutely a head above what C1 has... and what C1 offers is totally useless
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what C1 needs is to bring equivalent functionality w/o forcing users to generate all those variants
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@Michael
I suppose the one of the issues here is that you can't use the B & W tool on a layer. Now that would be quite good, and you could turn it on and off!
@Dee
Capture One has only recently got before/after at all, so it is a whole lot better than it used to be. I believe LR has had it for some time, so perhaps it has had more time to develop. I am such a beginner with LR that I don't actually know the ins and outs of how that tool works.
Ian
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I realise that Class A thinks the use of variants is a work around but it depends on one's personal preferences.
Both of the points made are only a matter of opinion based on how one approaches editing.
Personally I have no problem in deciding when the creation of a variant save point might be a good idea and deleting, if one bothers, is a key click away. No big deal and a lot of instant access with visual confirmation.
Conversely my experiences with applications the use "History" seemed tortuous by comparison, especially when a single edit action such as the application of a Style had translated into multiple changes across which one had to back track.
If one had indeed reverted to an earlier point and then wished to back out of changes made from there and resume the previous path things became very messy. My personal preference was always to establish a new based point - i.e. a Variant in C1 terms - and start again from there or restart the edit entirely from a new edit of the source to build an alternatively processed variant.
The problem, perhaps, is that it one goes back in time far enough to compare the functionality that was available when one formed one's opinions and workflows to what is available now some of the pluses and minuses that applied then may not longer apply today. But our preferred approach is likely to be so ingrained by now that alternatives may be difficult to adopt.
I use the recently introduced slider version of before and after to see how far C1 can push an image - especially something that is fairly extreme in processing needs. However for real studied processing comparisons I find the multiple variant approach much more satisfactory and productive.
Still, each to teir own preferences and if people wish for a full "history of edit steps at some point in the future so be it.
Hopefully it will be optional so that it can be turned off.
And if implemented will keep a separate history for each variant.
Quite how one might deal with applying and removing batch copy and paste actions is something that might need some careful thought to avoid compromising performance and memory requirements but maybe the newest tech will be able to deal with that well enough.
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Michael,
"SFA’s solution will work but it is a long way to go in my opinion when a simple checkbox option will accomplish what I am looking for. I am not discounting your idea SFA, I just think my suggestion is a simpler solution. "
Well you can do that by setting you base edit (say a B&W tool application and adjustments to taste) and making that a compare variant. But not when using the rather limited Before and After tool - in either presentation version.
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