The Basic Adjustments Aren t Basic


The Basic Adjustments Aren't Basic

You use the Develop module when you've got some serious adjusting to do, so don't be fooled just because the first adjustment panel on the right side is named Basic. Those "Basic" controls are the same controls found in Adobe Photoshop's acclaimed Camera Raw plug-in, and give you the same power the industry's top pros use to process their RAW images (but in your case, you can also process JPEGs and TIFFs the same way). This panel should be renamed "Essentials" or "Critical" or simply "Start Here" because the term Basic is a bit misleading.

Step One

In the Library module, click on the photo you want to do some serious adjusting to, then press Command-2 to jump to the Develop module. We'll start with the Basic adjustments (make sure you read the intro above so you understand that these are the most important, and most often used, adjustmentsnot basic ones). Like the Quick Develop panel, the Basic panel lets you choose a new white balance setting from the White Balance pop-up menu (as shown here).

©SCOTT KELBY AND ISTOCKPHOTO

Step Two

The big difference between Quick Develop's White Balance and the Basic panel's White Balance is that here in the Develop module, you have more than just a pop-up menuyou can create custom white balance settings using the two White Balance sliders circled in the close-up of the Basic panel shown here. The Saturation slider looks like it's part of the White Balance controls, but it's not (more on that in a moment).

Step Three

Adobe added a very helpful feature to the White Balance sliders, one that even Photoshop doesn't have, and that is both the Temperature and Tint sliders give you a visual clue what the sliders do. For example, take a look at the Temperature slidersee the color bar inside the slider? That tells you which way the temperature of your photo will be affected if you drag in that direction. Here, we dragged the Temperature slider toward the yellow side of the slider, and as you can see from the photo, the entire photo is now warmer and more yellow.

Tip

Even if you start by selecting a preset White Balance from the pop-up menu, you can edit that preset setting by moving the Temperature and Tint sliders.


Step Four

If you want to cool off the white balance a bit, rather than using the Tungsten or Fluorescent presets on the White Balance pop-up menu, you can get just the amount of cooling you want by dragging the Temperature slider to the left, toward the blue (as shown here). Again, all you have to do is look at the color there in the slider itself to see which way to drag. In most cases, you'll either want to warm up an image (by dragging the Temperature slider to the right, toward yellow), or cool it down (by dragging the Temperature slider to the left). However, if you want to have more of a green or magenta white balance (hey, it could happen), then use the Tint slider and drag toward the color you want.

Step Five

Don't ever hesitate to try different White Balance settings, because you can always return to the original "as shot" setting by choosing As Shot from the White Balance pop-up menu (as shown here). Plus, if all you've adjusted at this point is the White Balance, you can click the Reset button that appears just below the panels themselves in the bottom right-hand corner of the Develop module's Panels area (shown circled here). This Reset button is always there while you're working in the Develop module, so anytime you need to start over just click directly on it and all your edits are undone. That's the whole non-destructive editing thing in action.

Step Six

If you want a more precise way to set the white balance, try the White Balance tool (which looks like an Eyedropper, and is located at the bottom of the Panels areait's shown circled here). Here's how it works: Click the White Balance tool, then move your cursor out over your image and click on an area of your image that is a light gray (I clicked on the door on the left here). I know, you'd figure that you'd click on something white, right? But that's the way it works, so click on something light gray. That's itit sets your white balance for you. If you don't like the way your photo looks after clicking, then either try clicking somewhere else (a different gray area) or choose As Shot from the White Balance pop-up menu, then try again.

Step Seven

The Saturation slider controls the overall saturation of colors in your document, so if your colors are looking drab and washed out, you could "pump up the volume" by dragging the Saturation slider to the right (here I dragged it all the way to the right, and the photo is way oversaturated, as you can see). If you drag the slider to the left, it makes all the colors in your photo less intense (it desaturates them).

Step Eight

If you drag the Saturation slider all the way to the left, it removes all the color, and gives you a black-and-white image. However, this is not the method you'd want to use to create color to black-and-white conversions because there are much better ways that give you much better results (as you'll see later in this chapter).

Tip

If you feel like the sliders in Lightroom are too broad and don't give you precise enough control, then you'll love the finer control you get by using "scrubby sliders." Just move your cursor directly over the numbers to the right of the sliders, then click, hold, and drag left or right and the numbers will move one digit at a time.


Step Nine

The next important slider in the Basic panel is the Exposure slider (shown circled here), which lets you set the white point for your image. Dragging the Exposure slider to the right increases the overall exposure (as shown here, where the image is much brighter), and dragging to the left decreases the exposure. Again, you get a visual cue by looking at the sliders themselves, because white is on the right side of the slider (indicating that dragging that way would make this adjustment lighter), and black is on the left side of the slider (indicating that dragging to the left would make your image darker).

Step Ten

To get the best possible highlights, our goal is to drag the Exposure slider as far to the right as possible without blowing out the highlights (which causes loss of detail). To keep you from doing that, Lightroom gives you two types of warnings. If you press-and-hold the Option key before you start dragging the Exposure slider, your image turns black (as shown here) and as you drag to the right (increasing the exposure) any colors that are blowing out (losing highlight detail) will appear. If you see red areas (as seen in this image), that lets you know that the red in the image in that area is blowing out. If this is a sunset photo, and that red area appears in the center of the sun, you can pretty much ignore itthe center of the sun isn't supposed to have detail. But if you release the Option key and see that red area is an important area of detail in your image, then you know you've dragged too far. So, pull the Exposure slider back to the left a little.

Step Eleven

There's another way to make sure you're not clipping off important detail in your highlights (or shadows), and that's to turn on the Highlights (or Shadows) clipping warnings. You turn these on right under the Histogram by clicking on either the word "Highlights" or "Shadows." In this case, I turned on the Highlights warning. When you do this, you no longer have to press-and-hold the Option key while you drag the Exposure slider, but you get an entirely different type of clipping warning.

Step Twelve

This clipping warning doesn't turn your screen blackit displays the full-color image, but it also now displays any areas that are clipping (losing detail) in bright red (as shown here). If you turn on the Shadows clipping warning, then any areas that have turned solid black (causing you to lose detail in those areas) will appear in bright blue. So, which clipping warning method should you use? Whichever you're most comfortable with. The only advantage the pressing-and-holding-the-Option-key method gives is that you can see exactly which colors in your image are clipping (so if only a yellow area is clipping, you'll only see yellowif all the colors are clipping, you'll see white), so it does give you a little more feedback than just the red or blue warning.

Step Thirteen

Now that you know about the different Highlights and Shadows clipping warnings (and why they're so importantto keep us from overadjusting and losing detail in our images), we'll move on to the next slider, which is Blacks. This is what you use to set the black point in your image, and if you look at the slider, once again it gives you a visual cue on what happens when you drag in a particular direction. Take a look at the Blacks slider. Which way would you drag to make the shadows darker? Right toward the black (hey, those visual cues save you a lot of guessing).

Step Fourteen

If you press-and-hold the Option key while adjusting the Blacks (shadow) slider, the photo will turn white, and as you drag to the right, any areas that will turn pure black (and have no detail) will appear in black. If you see other areas in color (yellow, blue, green, etc.), that's telling you that the yellows, blues, and greens in that area are being clipped to black. Now, in the image shown here, the area inside of the doorway is clipping and the shadows in the windows are clipping. Those are areas that probably wouldn't have significant detail anyway, so I wouldn't worry about those areas, but it's nice to be able to see what will turn solid black so you can decide whether you need to back off the amount of blacks or not. Again, you could also use the Shadows clipping warning (below the left side of the Histogram) to warn you of clipped shadow areasit's up to you.

Step Fifteen

The next control down is the Brightness slider, which lets you adjust the midtones in your photo. Look to the slider for a visual cue, and you can see that dragging to the right will lighten your midtones, and dragging to the left will darken them. You don't have the option of pressing-and-holding the Option key to see if you're blowing out the highlights or shadows when you're adjusting the Brightness. So, you could turn on the Shadows and Highlights clipping warnings that appear directly below the Histogram. But if you move the midtones enough so that you get a clipping warning, your image will probably look so bad onscreen that the clipping warning isn't necessary.

Step Sixteen

The last slider in the Basic panel is the Contrast slider and it does exactly what you'd expectwhen you drag it to the right it adds more contrast to your photo by making the shadows darker and the highlights brighter. In the image shown here, I dragged the Contrast slider quite a bit to the right, and you can see the photo has gotten really contrasty (and I'm not sure contrasty is really even a word, but I'm counting on the book's editors not looking too closely at this step).



The Adobe Lightroom eBook for Digital Photographers
The Adobe Photoshop Lightroom 2 Book for Digital Photographers
ISBN: B001FA0MWK
EAN: N/A
Year: 2006
Pages: 71
Authors: Scott Kelby

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