Michael Frye, Lightroom 4 Working with the New Process - video

[LouieSherwin]

A friend pointed me to this excellent video that has the best explanation I have come across of the new process version in LR4 (PV2012). It really helped me to understand some of the very important changes that occur when using this new process version and why you will never want to do a bulk update.

Correction: I incorrectly posted the link to only Part 2.

Here are the links to both Part 1 and Part 2.

Part 1: Lightroom 4: The New Tone Controls
Part 2: Lightroom 4: Working With the New Process


-louie

[Victoria Bampton]

Thanks for posting that Louie. I'll look forward to watching.

[sizzlingbadger]

Its an interesting video with some nice tips but his explanation of the how the sliders map to the older process would be very confusing to a beginner. He doesn't seem to understand the effect of the Exposure control properly, he compares it to shifting the middle of the tone curve which is incorrect. The Exposure slider effects the white point too.

[Rose Weir]

I watched part 2 last night. A well presented video. I had a series of high contrast (strong backlit images) and this part 2 explained to me the value of considering setting the white point AND illustrated the variations with Exposure and contrast. I tended to use the point curve predominantly in Lr3 and this Part 2 video illustrates that its not such a bad thing to continue using the point curve. He admits careful use of the sliders can attain the same thing...but the point curve has accuracy is his opinion.
After watching the video I flew through those backlit images taking consideration of the white and black points and was amazed at the results.

Rose

[LouieSherwin]

Nik,

I was puzzled by your comment that the information regarding the new sliders would be confusing to newcomers. That is until I realized that I inadvertently posted the link to Michaels Part 2 and not to Part 1 which is the one I was I had just watched before starting this thread.

Here are links to both parts and I have also updated my original post to now show links to both videos:

Part 1: Lightroom 4: The New Tone Controls
Part 2: Lightroom 4: Working With the New Process

-louie

[LouieSherwin]

He doesn't seem to understand the effect of the Exposure control properly, he compares it to shifting the middle of the tone curve which is incorrect. The Exposure slider effects the white point too.

Nik,

Will you please explain more about your understanding of this? Are you referring to the actual white point or to the fact that you can control the amount of white clipping by adjusting exposure? These are not the same thing although they have a similar effect in that the will make the lightest tones in your image go to pure white.

I am not sure since I do not have knowledge of Lightroom internals but I suspect that the tone sliders don't actually change white and black points of the image but rather shift the distribution around to allow you to maximize your tonal range. I think that probably the only way you can actually control the white and black points is going to be in levels where you can explicitly drag the endpoints of the curve.

Understandably this is a subtle distinction but as Michael points out, using curve to set the black and white points is going to also increase mid-tone contrast by virtue of the fact that it makes a steeper curve. This may or may not be what you want depending on the type of image you are working with.

I will be interested to hear your thoughts on this.

-louie

[sizzlingbadger]

When you shift the exposure slider the white point moves, watch the histogram. In his video he compares the exposure to just shifting the middle of the point curve but that doesn't move the white point. He also talks about setting the exposure to -33 because that is then the same as the older version, that is also untrue.

His approach to using the controls is really useful, I just think some of his explanations could be clearer.