I'm not liking lightroom's tone curve tool. Is there any way to use an old-fashioned photoshop-type curve instead?

No...

Beyond Jeff's accurate but somewhat direct response, I would add the following...

Parametric curves in Lightroom take a little while to learn and become comfortable with. But, when you have, especially in conjunction with the Targeted Adjustment Control, they provide unparalleled control and flexibility.

But, in other words – no.

Michael

I admit freely to not being a Curves Wizard. Frankly, I just don't have the patience!

The Tone Curve in Lightroom makes a lot more intuitive sense to me - so while you can't do direct adjustments to it, I find I get a lot more out of it than I've ever been able to really do in the Photoshop Curves tool...

That's what I said...

:~)

I guess it's time to learn curves all over again.

The 'problem' is often the user, not LR.'s curves. In the past (and based on who's books you read), you are given the impression that the first stop for any image correction is to go directly to curves and not pass go. But LR isn't Photoshop and shouldn't be looked at in such a light. LR.'s tone and color controls are arranged in a fixed order. Now you don't have to use them this way but going outside this route can lead to issues that cause you to spend more time chasing your tail then getting work done. Bottom line is, the curves are useful for very fine tune adjustments and I find that I often don't even need to use them. They are useful for tiny tone tweaks you may not even need. Do all the heavy lifting using the Basic controls.

Well what I wasn't liking was the method of altering the curves - the interface itself. I don't know how that makes me the problem.

In any case it's pretty lame to blame the user when they're having trouble with a piece of software.

The Parametric curves don't allow you to alter them to hose the image which is good, especially when you understand that you're doing fine tweaks.

There's a pencil option in Photoshop's curves that allow you to severely Posterize the image and you can of course do this using the standard point curves if you pull them too much. That's not possible in LR and as yet, I don't see why anyone would want to do this.

You can't pull individual color channels in LR.'s curves because again, this isn't the place to be doing such work.

LR's Parametric curves are for fine tweaks, end of story.

Now the question that I'd find reasonable would be, if there is point curves in ACR, why not LR? Considering that it appears the good people at Adobe are trying for parity between the two, its a reasonable question. Lose them in ACR or add them in LR, I'm OK with either.

I'm with you pcrov... And it's one of the (many) reasons I don't like or use LR.

Adobe spends what, the last 10 years having us do curves one way in Photoshop? We learn it and get accustomed and proficient with one way, then all of a sudden they expect us all to fall in love with parametric sliders? Sorry, I like the old way, the ability to ctrl/cmd-click a point onto the curve and adjust it. IMO, many improvements aren't...

Cheers,

You're incorrect in assuming that editing gamma corrected images in Photoshop is anything like rendering linear gamma raw data. This is a problem I've seen with some so called Photoshop guru's who look at raw modules as if they were Photoshop correction tools. If all you know is a hammer, everything appears like a nail. IF you're rendering raw data (not using LR or ACR to edit existing rendered gamma corrected images which I think is silly), then you have to look at this tool in a different light.

Yes, you're wrong and you don't really know how to communicate and behave in a public forum, at least based on your poor choice of language.

Exactly. I'm sure the parametric sliders are just lovely, but the photoshop-style curves tool is second-nature to me. It's going to be hard to adjust.

what an odd reaction.

Yes, much better at illustrating your lack of decorum and intelligence.

Why are you even here? Did I insult your favorite new toy or something?

No.

PCROV Please be aware that many people will be offended by your choice of language on this public forum. My friend's children (quite young) are learning about photography and often visit. I don't see why you felt you had been offended and also why you had to respond as you did. It would be a sign of maturity if you first edited (ie removed) your most offensive posts and then issued an apology.

I don't take kindly to self-important assholes telling me my *opinion* is wrong and implying I'm somehow stupid or ignorant for having it. I'll not be editing my posts or apologizing to anyone.

Well, I won't imply ANYTHING...you ARE stupid and ignorant for both your opinion and your behavior and your attitude. You may THINK you have the right to do or say anything you wish, but you don't. Not if you wish to maintain the honor of posting in this group of people.

You need not reply to this message (or you can if you wish) I have chosen to ignore you as a user which means nothing you post will be visible to me-regardless of what you may write. It's a form of banishment open to us in these forums-although truth be told I suspect when Michael sees this thread and your behavior and language, I figure he'll do a bit more.

See ya, have a nice life (and maybe think about changing your meds or getting off caffiene).

pcrov: I have no role moderating, but from past experience I would simply observe there are rules regarding behaviour on this website, and there are consequences for not respecting them.

Take a hike, bub.

The individual has now been deleted and banned.

Michael

Andrew:

I hear you on rendering raw, BUT... ACR has a curves point mode in addition to the sliders -- and thus I have a good old fashioned curves type interface in RAW that I can place points on. This option is missing in LR... My only point was I prefer that type of adjustment freedom (and I submit higher precision) to the parametric sliders. Moreover, it's what I'm used to doing. (Not sure why the other guy went postal, but I thought that was his point too...)

Cheers,

Thank you for the ban.

Good. And thanks for telling us - it will serve as a public future reference point in case other such people join the site and behave likewise.

Hi Jack,

OK, now that this thread is back to sanity we can discuss technicalities in peace and harmony. I agree with your observation that the point curve is extremely useful, it's what we know best, and I applaud Thomas Knoll that it was retained in Adobe Camera Raw. I also applaud the Adobe team on the development of the Parametric Curve which appears in both Lightroom and in Camera Raw. I also agree it would be helpful if the point curve were also included in Lightroom as it is in Camera Raw. When I attended a Lightroom seminar at PhotoshopWorld in Boston this past April I met a number of the key players on the Lightroom team and I made this recommendation to them. Of course many people recommend all kinds of things to them, and they must decide whether a point curve is a good philosophical fit for their concept of what Lightroom is supposed to be about.

At first I was a bit skeptical about the usefulness of this parametric curve, because I was forever frustrated that I could not detach the end points from their anchors - that is really the main hiccup with it. But I must report, now that I have played with this parametric curve ALOT, I have really become a convert - don't get me wrong - I still want my point curve, but this tool is GOOD. It's a very efficient way of doing zonal-type adjustments on images - as a complement if needed after you finish with Exposure, Recovery, Fill Light and Blacks in the Basic Tab. Once you combine the adjustability of the zonal demarcators with the adjustability of the four portions of the Curve itself, you can get a surprising amount of very refined and powerful control out of this system. I'm developing techniques for setting it which in some ways surpass the flexibility of the point curve in terms of acceptable impacts on images.

Cheers,

Mark

It had to be retained for backwards compatibility reasons. It should also be noted that Lightroom 1/1.1 CAN render a point curve, you just can't actually edit the point curve.

However, if you'all want the point curve editor in Lightroom, you would do better posting in the Feature Request forum for Lightroom and be prepared to make a use case why certain edits HAVE to be done with points and why the lack of points in Lightroom is causing less than optimal processing results. That is the only real factor with weight.

Merely saying you LIKE points better than parametric or you WANT point editing won't get any traction, what so ever. You must make a case and prove it. Fact is, most curves CAN be done quicker and easier with parametric than points–if you know what you're doing. There are only a very few things that can't be done-like editing extreme highlights to tease textural detail out. That's an example...and the engineers already know that...but it would be useful to find more use cases to strengthen the case.

P.S. Mike, thanks for making butthead go bye bye...of course now that's he listed as "registered" his darn vulgar posts reappeared. :~(

Long live backward compatibility!

It's not a matter of "liking it better". It happens to be a very efficient and effective way of achieving higher contrast and brightness at the same time with a distinctly smooth gradiant of luminosity change that you can get from a linear more easily than from a curvilinear transformation. I had hoped at least one or more of the huge number of beta testers and perhaps an alpha or two would have recommended that to them, and perhaps did. (I had a long delay getting into Lightroom Beta because I'm on Windows, then soon after the CS3 Beta came out, so I opted for that.) The feedback I got to my suggestion for the point curve at PSW indicated quite clearly that not including it in LR was a deliberate choice to "keep the program simple" - so it's not that they don't know the merits of it, they consciously decided not to include it. Well, they are the developers - their prerogative. Maybe if they get enough recommendations from enough customers all saying the same thing they'll rethink that decision. Clearly it's no big deal to just drop it in - the whole thing is there already in Camera Raw.

(edited)

Cheers,

Mark

I hear you Jeff, but maintaining detail in highlights is an area I personally pay lots of attention to, especially during the raw conversion; I expend enough energy to make sure they're not blown during capture, that I certainly want to be able to tweak them without blowing them during conversion. The upper end of the highlights is probably not as important for folks posting mainly to the web -- a LR strength -- but IMO it makes a difference in obtaining the optimal tonal balance in a print. I am often asked how I get the look I get in my images (web and print) by folks who know how to process, and I suspect the question is at least partially answered by what I do with my highlights.

Mark: If I could add another slider or two to the parametric curve so I had more control in the highlights without giving it up in the shadows, I might be more enthused with the tool, but even then I have doubts they would give me the discrimination I want in that adjustment...

Cheers,

Jack,

I find that by very careful placement of the first zone placer to the right on the x-axis of the dialogue box, and then iterating between adjusting it as well as the Highlights and Lights sliders themselves, one can achieve quite subtle control of what happens to real highlights, versus "Lights". As I'm sure you've discovered already, one really should play with those zonal markers to make the most of that tool. By the way, you don't give up a thing in the shadows by playing with the Lights and the Highlights, especially if watching the placement of the zone marker between Darks and Shadows.

I've played with it a bit, but admit I am not even close to proficient... Explain to me how I would increase contrast in the highlights while keeping the maximum brightness at 97% (roughly 248) and at the same time not affecting any pixels below say 87% (roughly 222) using the parametric controls.

Assume at the same time I want to add an inverse adjustment (lower contrast but maintain certain border values) in the shadows.

Finally, suppose once the above are done, I might want to boost contrast slightly throughout the middle range from say 25% through 75%, and increase brightness slightly, but of course without significantly altering either of the earlier adjustments.

I'm sure it can be done and moreover understand a "similar" more general effect could be achieved, but I cannot see how to do it with precision using the slider interface. Yet in curves it is accomplished pretty easily with good precision.

Cheers,

You THINK they said "keep the program simple", what they were REALLY saying is that it didn't sound mission critical so they chose not to spend the engineering time required to engineer a UI into Lightroom to be able to edit points because they had so many other things they couldn't afford the time. You need to be able to read the context (engineer speak).

Will Lightroom get the UI to edit points?

I'll bet it will at some "point" :~) Not that hard since the code is already there, just no UI. Will it happen sooner vs later? The more people that post on the Feature Request forum asking for it and giving strong use cases the more likely it will to be soon than later.

At least the sliders are more or less idiot-proof I see it akin to having a stereo with bass, treble and volume adjustments, versus having a component system with a graphic equalizer. I suspect from a business POV, it gets the job done "well enough" for 80% of the users, and for management, that's "good enough".

I liked Adobe better when Lamkin was there -- at least I had his ear on some of this stuff

Cheers,

Actually, the sliders are NOT idiot proof. Use them badly and you can mess-up an image just as badly as you would with a traditional Curve

For the highlight portion, you would set the rightmost zone marker far enough to the left to isolate only the highlights whose contrast you want to increase. Then you would steepen that portion of the curve with the Highlight slider.

For the shadows, likewise you would set the left most point far enough to the left to isolate just the shadow areas, and adjust the shadows slider to make it flatter.

For the middle range, you would then steepen the "Darks" and "Lights" portions, experimenting how much for each and where to place the middle zone marker to delineate the Lights from the Darks. You can have some quite refined control over the mid-tones - for example, suppose you Lighten the Lights and Darken the darks, or you Lighten both but the Darks by less than the Lights. Then by sliding that middle zone marker to the left the mid-tones darken, and by sliding it to the right they lighten. Etc., etc.

Yeah, I get that -- as I said I could generate a similar effect... But can I lock down the specific end values as I listed them for the highlights? I think not.

Jack, it's a different kind of thinking. The language of "locking down values" is more applicable to traditional point curves - which I too still like very much.
My version of the LR interface doesn't even give me those composite Luminosity values to reference (or at least I haven't seen where). Where does one see when you are at luminosity 87%? (I only see individual R G B values on LR-1 for Windows.) I think luminosity in the LR interface is meant to be used more visually and less by specific numerical luminosity values as in the traditional way.

Yep, I got that... Reminds of an old ad... "With the Bose radio you don't need any complicated dials or settings because our professional audiophiles have pre-balanced the radio to perfection for you! Simply adjust the volume to your desired level and enjoy the music!" ~~~ Want some more Kool-Aid?

All kidding aside, if LR works as-is for you, great. Me, I want more flexibility and repeatable precision.

Cheers,

Jeff,

I understand the constraints of software developement.

But... overlooking the "want" to focus on the "need" will not capture the fact that if I don't get what I "want" I'll probably decide at some point of time to use a piece of software that does give me what I "want".

Regards,
Bernard

That is the crux of the matter; I keep hearing from software companies what amounts to "we know you don't like it but its better this way, get used to it" with little or no thought to what the consumer actually desires. It seems that many of these companies would benifit in taking a basic business course from their local community college. But, then again, I doubt adobe will be losing money anytime soon because of something like this.

And that's your right. Look, the Lightroom engineers can only do what they can do. LR 1.1 was required for a variety of bug fixes and functionality enhancements-which meant that that other work went undone. What current Lightroom feature would you give up in exchange for point editing? Prolly not mergable catalogs, prolly not sharpening, prolly not a lot that is in 1.1 that ain't in 1.0.

Want will always take a backseat to need. So, unless you can elevate a want to a need, it will remain optional as apposed to mission critical.

Can you get really great output now from Lightroom? Would a point editor make a big difference? Prove it. Try to find use cases where Camera Raw can do a substantially better job than Lightroom.

Jeff,

As you might remember, I was not too enthousiastic about LR in the past for various reasons having to do with the need to import data and the lack of opening to other raw converters (I see that DxO is now proposing an intregration which is great).

This being said, I have to admit that the quality of the conversions in 1.1 is now excellent and have to acknowledge the fact that it is possible to get great results with 1.1. It works especially well with my ZD files as long as the exposures are reasonnably short.

Now, the main reasons why I think I need point curves in Lightroom nonetheless are:

- point control enables me to increase the local contrast of an image exactly where it has to be done based on the actual histogram. The current sliders work on pre-defined areas of the curve that do not always meet the actual needs of an image.

How about those high key images that do not have a lot of information in the lower 25% of the histogram but where more contrast is needed elsewhere for instance?

Since this is currently not easy to do - or at least I haven't found an easy way to do it - you often end up having to apply more global curves inside PS, which defeats the very purpose of LR as a comprehensive global image modification engine. Multiple curve application can only increase the entropy of the image and should be avoided.

- highlight control - we all know that those brightest bits can often make or break an image, especially those shot with natural light. I believe that this has been mentioned by others also,

- consistency with ACR. I am not yet sold on the idea that I need to batch import all my images in Lightroom, especially all the legacy ones. Using ACR on those is much faster and I would typically use point control for those images. I'd like to be able to stick the same workflow for those new images I'll handle with Lightroom,

- consistency with other RAW converters like Capture NX,

- I am used to working with point curve.

Regards,
Bernard

Wouldn't you just love the fine control of LightZone's ZoneMapper in Lightroom :-) ?

Adobe should acquire Lightcrafts and use its nifty tooling like ZoneMapper, Re-light and especially its selection tools.

Herman

Bernard,

While I hear Jeff loud and clear (no way you can't) and he has a point (or two) I still find myself firmly within the group who "wants" point curves. Do I really "need" them? - yes and no - I'm moving from being less convinced of yes to not convinced of no - if you see what I mean. So while I still "want" the Point Curve, at the same time I recognize the value and potential of the Parametric approach.

You say above the current sliders work on pre-defined areas of the Curve. This is not necessarily quite correct, depending on what you mean by "pre-defined" - you can re-define those areas by shifting the zone demarcation sliders on the x-axis of the Curve U.I. box. In fact you have seven controls in that U.I. - the four sliders below the box and three markers immediately under the box. You can work back and forth between them to shape that Curve with remarkable effectiveness. I've processed over a thousand images over the past several months using the new Camera Raw (same thing as LR Develop except ACR does have the point curve in a separate tab), and I find myself needing the Point Curve less and less - but when I need it, I do need it.

This is not because I absolutely can't do with Parametric what I can do with Point, but because the distinction between "want" and "need" is less clear-cut than Jeff's posts would imply. There is also a consideration of "time-effectiveness" in all this. I can probably get 90% of what I "need" from a Parametric Curve quite easily. The other 10% I could probably get as well - with much more time spent fiddling with sliders rather than plunking down several points. I would also like to see composite luminosity, Lab and HSB data read-outs in an expanded info palette. Maybe this needs to be a "feature request".

I agree with Jeff that there are trade-offs between priorities, especially when a company - which is after all a for profit enterprise (absent which we wouln't have all this stuff) feels it's under commercial pressure to put a product on the market by a certain date. That said, the Point Curve add-in is probably one of the easiest and fastest things they could do, because all the technology for it is sitting right under their own roof in Camera Raw. OK, says me who isn't a software engineer - and I know everything takes time even if it's been done before - but common sense would suggest this is not a monumental development problem for them. And I'm still not convinced that leaving this out of Lightroom was a matter of this priority versus that. I do believe that I heard and interpreted correctly what I was told: they wanted to keep LR "simple" - well - it ain't all that simple, but..............that's what they "wanted" - and felt they "needed".

Bernard, your last point - "I am used to working with Point curve" - yah, so am I, so is Jack, so is everyone. I don't know how old you guys are, but I'm getting on up there, and I still like to believe that old dogs can learn new tricks. But they'd best be better ones!

Cheers,

Mark

Given the fact that ACR has point curve and given the fact (well it may not be a fact but it appears to be true) that Adobe is trying to produce feature parity between LR and ACR with minor exceptions, and given the fact that users appear to want point curves, I think it should be easily accomplished should enough people make their voices heard. It seems obvious that Thomas Knoll feels point curves are necessary and useful. Now you can import the point curve settings from ACR into LR but man, that's a kludge.

Unlike Jeff, I don't know the rational or have heard discussions of the two teams lead engineers but it appears from the outside as if the two team leaders don't necessarily agree in the need for point curve. More the reason why it would be useful to provide examples of images using BOTH products to illustrate your points to the LR group.

OR we can choose to use -- and pay for -- a tool that gives us what we want in lieu of a tool that doesn't, even though some third party tells us it has everything we need... (AKA, "drink their Kool-Aid!") Here I use the word "want" specifically as respects my purchasing criteria.

Cheers,

This has been a very interesting discussion. Jack, could you show us how we can benefit from point curves in post processing? And could others show us how that can be done in LR?

Thank you all.

Fred

Jack - we all know nothing is perfect out there and I think you'd have a hard time - if not an impossible one - replicating in one package all which LR offers. If what you lack is a point Curve, use Camera Raw instead - does the same stuff with this added benefit.

Cheers,

Mark

OK, I'm not Jack so I won't get into the specifics of answering your question, but I must confess to being puzzled by te question itself. A point Curve is the same animal we've had in Photoshop from the get-go. Presumably you've been using it?

Yes, but it would be helpful to see an example of how an image enhanced with point curves could be enhanced with LR. The baseline is the point curve image. The question is whether LR can do as well or better with equal or less effort.

Fred