Highlight adjustment; various options...differences?
If I have a blown highlight, I can do various things to try to recover it. (I'm talking about a highlight that I know is there, but that has become overexposed due to other edits.)
I'm just wondering what, if any, the differences are between them?
I can try and reduce over Exposure and then recover the lost mid-tones with Brightness or Levels.
In the HDR tab I can adjust the Highlight slider.
In Levels, I can drag the top of the highlight level to the left.
In Curves, I can drag downwards the top of the highlight end of the curve.
In Colour Balance, I can drag down the Luminance wheel of the Highlight Colour Balance.
There may be other ways.
I'm just wondering what are the pros/cons of the various options above?
Thanks.
D.
I'm just wondering what, if any, the differences are between them?
I can try and reduce over Exposure and then recover the lost mid-tones with Brightness or Levels.
In the HDR tab I can adjust the Highlight slider.
In Levels, I can drag the top of the highlight level to the left.
In Curves, I can drag downwards the top of the highlight end of the curve.
In Colour Balance, I can drag down the Luminance wheel of the Highlight Colour Balance.
There may be other ways.
I'm just wondering what are the pros/cons of the various options above?
Thanks.
D.
0
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[quote="Dinarius" wrote:
I'm just wondering what, if any, the differences are between them?
I think this is a really good question and I would love to have access to some documentation that explains what happens "under the hood" for all kinds of adjustments.
Knowing exactly what the effect is (e.g., whether exposure adjustments are entirely flat across the range or have a progressive "shoulder" built-in) would help to use the various alternatives more purposefully. I have consulted the "Capture One 9 User Guide" but unfortunately it is not very informative in that regard.
For instance, I mainly use "Exposure" vs "Brightness" adjustments intuitively without fully knowing where their exact differences are. I know that "Brightness" is meant to "primarily affect the mid-tones of an image", but that is not very specific and does not explain whether "Exposure" works completely flat across the range or not. I reckon (unfortunately), "Exposure" is "smarter" than that, as the guide states it works "in a similar way" to the controls of a camera. As an aside, wouldn't it be good to have at least one way of mimicking/counteracting exactly what exposure compensation achieves in a camera? There could still be smarter controls for those that want more of a "ready-mix" approach to adjustments.
While it is possible to achieve some editing competence by simply working intuitively and with visual feedback, I feel it is not quite the same as knowing exactly what happens. It would be wonderful, if someone could point us to some technical information (along the lines of a "white paper" or a detailed user guide).[quote="Dinarius" wrote:
In the HDR tab I can adjust the Highlight slider.
I am assuming that the Highlight slider is the only one that will attempt actual "repairs" to clipped highlights. A good highlight recovery tool will replace completely blown out pixels with lower value ones with a colour that is inspired by nearby pixels that aren't quite blown out yet.
It is possible (and I've noticed a comment to that effect somewhere; no idea about the credibility, though) that using the exposure slider to apply some negative exposure compensation also triggers the above highlight recovery techniques. I haven't experimented with that (my K-1 has far too much dynamic range for highlights to ever get blown out 😎 😜).[quote="Dinarius" wrote:
In Levels, I can drag the top of the highlight level to the left.
This adjustment is different to any of the others you have mentioned, as it will just influence the maximum value of the white point. In other words, you are not actually changing the tonal relationships between the bright and the brightest parts of an image, but are only scaling down the overall brightness range.
Using the levels tool in such a manner only serves to reduce the overall output range, which can be a desirable effect, but is different to changing the "weight" of the highlights compared to other tones.[quote="Dinarius" wrote:
In Curves, I can drag downwards the top of the highlight end of the curve.
This should be similar to using the highlight slider (sans recovery repairs) and the luminance aspect of the highlight colour balance tool, but of course you have much more control over the shape of the adjustment. With any other tool, you are working with a predefined adjustment shape. For instance, for the highlight colour balance tool there is some predefined shape defining where the "highlight" range ends and how the adjustment shape blends into the non-adjusted range; perhaps the tool is adaptive, but be that as it may, you cannot influence the range and adjustment characteristic.
In contrast, with the Curves tool you can exactly pick the adjustment range and which parts get boosted or attenuated. Note that you have a choice between an RGB curve (or one of the R, G, B components) and "Luma (luminance)" curve. With the latter you will only be affecting brightness levels without influencing saturation as a side effect.
Apparently (according to a Webinar comment) adjusting contrast with the "Contrast" slider sits somewhere between an equivalent RGB-curve and Luma-curve adjustments. It seems likely that other controls (like "Brightness" and "Exposure") do not just make plain adjustments (e.g., mathematically exposure compensation should correspond to just plain multiplication with a factor) but try to achieve some visually useful adjustment (i.e., add some refinement to the plain idea).
Personally, I do not like basic adjustments that are trying to be too clever. In Lightroom (ACR), for instance, the exposure slider became so adaptive (IIRC, with LR 4.0) that it became hard or in some instances even impossible to use it to purposefully blow out a white background (e.g., for a portrait shot that was left a bit underexposed but still needed a completely white background in the final version). The exposure slider was so "clever" that it prevented the clipping of pixel values. Of course, as in the aforementioned application, the "smart slider" was thus working against the goal of the retoucher, who found themselves looking for other means to achieve the effect.
I hope someone else can chime in with some first-hand / reliable information of how the various image adjustment alternatives in C1 10 differ from each other (preferably on a technical level).0 -
I can't say much about what is happening "under the hood". But some of my observations are
(1) if I have an image that does not have great dynamic range (so there is a bit of space to the left and the right of the histogram) then both the exposure slider and the brightness slider seem to have the effect of shifting the whole histogram to the side. Dragging the middle of the curve up to the left seems to have a very similar effect.
(2) If I have an image that is right up against the right hand side of the histogram (no space on the right) then increasing the exposure slider piles the histogram up against the right hand side rather more than happens by increasing the brightness. Dragging the curve up to the left is more like increasing the brightness than increasing the exposure. (But not identical in its effect on the histogram, as far as I can see.)
(3) If I have an image that has somewhat over exposed highlights (but not so bad that they can't be recovered with the tool) but where the overall image is a bit under-exposed, then I can increase the exposure so that the overall level is better and the highlight recovery is still effective. Possibly increasing brightness rather than exposure would be a better bet, though?
Ian0 -
I typically just use the highlights slider. What's weird is that you can have it maxed out to recover all highlights, then create an adjustment layer and paint in more highlight recovery if needed so it's like there's still room to play. I will say C1's highlight and shadow recovery is much more natural than LR. I've never liked the curves tool in C1 as it seems way too sensitive and hard to fine tune. Really wish they had sliders for the curves tool for those fine adjustments. As far as the other tools it would be interesting to see what's really going on but generally if you watch the histogram, you can see how each one works a bit different and I don't think there's technically a correct method just whatever works for ya 😊 0 -
[quote="Canon_Shoe" wrote:
I've never liked the curves tool in C1 as it seems way too sensitive and hard to fine tune. Really wish they had sliders for the curves tool for those fine adjustments.
One thing you can do about that is pull the curves tool out from the tools panel (or open a separate instance of the tool) and increase its size, which can give you a bit more ease of use for small adjustments to the curve.
Ian0 -
[quote="Ian3" wrote:
[quote="Canon_Shoe" wrote:
I've never liked the curves tool in C1 as it seems way too sensitive and hard to fine tune. Really wish they had sliders for the curves tool for those fine adjustments.
One thing you can do about that is pull the curves tool out from the tools panel (or open a separate instance of the tool) and increase its size, which can give you a bit more ease of use for small adjustments to the curve.
Ian
You can also enter numbers directly. If you have the number box active you can use the mouse scroll wheel or touchpad equivalent to scroll the numbers.
If you are using a mouse to slide the markers pressing the Alt key (on Windows) reduces sensitivity making fine adjustments easier.
For RGB Levels it is also possible to define keyboard shortcuts to add and subtract.
HTH.
Grant0 -
[quote="SFA" wrote:
You can also enter numbers directly. If you have the number box active you can use the mouse scroll wheel or touchpad equivalent to scroll the numbers.
Grant
Grant - can you do that in the cures tool? - Ian0 -
[quote="Ian3" wrote:
[quote="SFA" wrote:
You can also enter numbers directly. If you have the number box active you can use the mouse scroll wheel or touchpad equivalent to scroll the numbers.
Grant
Grant - can you do that in the cures tool? - Ian
Not with numbers, no, at least so far as I can tell. But if you cursor on to a control point you can scroll the control point vertically with the "scroll wheel" and horizontally if holding down the Shift key. No Alt speed adjustment that I have found but its quite a gentle scroll rate anyway.
Grant0 -
[quote="SFA" wrote:
Not with numbers, no, at least so far as I can tell. But if you cursor on to a control point you can scroll the control point vertically with the "scroll wheel" and horizontally if holding down the Shift key. No Alt speed adjustment that I have found but its quite a gentle scroll rate anyway.
Grant
Brilliant! I've been avoiding the curves tool for a while but this makes it much more convenient.
Thanks for the tip man.
-Gus0 -
Thanks. I've learned something new, yet again.
Ian0 -
I'm Windows.
If you click on a curve point, you can then move this curve point up/down and left/right, in single increments, using the up/down and left/right arrows on your keyboard.
Extremely subtle.
Far easier than using two hands on mouse wheel and shift key.
D.
Ps. If you click on just about anything in C1, you can then adjust that selection using the up/down, left/right arrows. They are pretty much all I use.0 -
[quote="Dinarius" wrote:
I'm Windows.
If you click on a curve point, you can then move this curve point up/down and left/right, in single increments, using the up/down and left/right arrows on your keyboard.
Extremely subtle.
Far easier than using two hands on mouse wheel and shift key.
D.
Ps. If you click on just about anything in C1, you can then adjust that selection using the up/down, left/right arrows. They are pretty much all I use.
Good point.
I find the "mouse" (in my case a notebook touchpad) works for my needs so I never really make use of the many options that are available - certainly not on a regular basis.
Thanks for the reminder!
Grant0 -
[quote="Dinarius" wrote:
I'm Windows.
If you click on a curve point, you can then move this curve point up/down and left/right, in single increments, using the up/down and left/right arrows on your keyboard.
Extremely subtle.
Far easier than using two hands on mouse wheel and shift key.
D.
Ps. If you click on just about anything in C1, you can then adjust that selection using the up/down, left/right arrows. They are pretty much all I use.
That's two new things I've learned from this thread so far. The arrow keys to move a curve point works on a Mac too, it seems.
Ian0 -
Firstly, change Film Curve to linear - C1 v.10 other curves are too contrasty.
Secondly, all other tools except Highlights works linearly - simply shift per-pixel values. Highlight (and Shadow) recover works differently either trying to 'reconstruct' details from blown-out channel and increasing local contrast.0 -
Dear experts of C1,
I am a new user who has appreciated the features of C1 pro 10 immensely, specially with reference to RAF files. I seek advise on how to recover the highlights of a particular image (RAW file shared through link below), which was taken while moving away in a yacht in Dubai Marina.
While recovery of the bill boards seems so easy in LR (Just a little movement of the highlight slider has immediate effect), it seems an effort in C1. Can someone guide please.........
https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/ ... sp=sharing0 -
It works for me - pulling the highlight recovery slider all the way to the right in the HDR tool recovers the billboards quite well.
Ian0 -
[quote="Ian3" wrote:
It works for me - pulling the highlight recovery slider all the way to the right in the HDR tool recovers the billboards quite well.
Ian
This.
Also maybe add a little Structure in the Clarity tool.
Personally I would also make some other changes if the windows are you main interest but then it may become more challenging to make something of the very dark areas.
It can be done but not in one or two clicks and slides I suspect.
HTH.
Grant0
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