Shadow/Highlight tool questions

B
Posted By
BobCraft
Feb 17, 2005
Views
257
Replies
1
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Closed
Before there is the shadow/highlight tool, I set black/white points and make color corrections with curves, etc. Now I find the s/h tool can do a lot of the work, but not consistently on all images. Here is an example.

In two quite different images A and B, I Alt-drag the Level slider to locate the darkest shadow points and set the Color Samplers. They both happen to have rgb values close to 18/18/20. After running the s/h tool with its default settings, image A’s Sampler values drop to 5/5/6, and image B’s Sampler values jump to 60/60/65.

In image A, the s/h tool not only bring out lots of shadow details, but dropping the Sampler values to 5/5/6 also sets a good black point to result in great contrast. I only need to tweak the default settings a bit to finish the job.

In image B, the s/h tool also brings out lots of shadow detail, but fails to set a good black point and results in a washed out look. No amount of tweaking of default settings will bring the Sampler values below 18/18/20. In situations like this, I have to go back to my old way of correction.

Why would the s/h tool behave so differently on these two images? Is there a way to force the tool to nail down the desired black/white points and still make shadow/highlight adjustments? Thanks.

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R
Roberto
Feb 17, 2005
wrote:
Before there is the shadow/highlight tool, I set black/white points
and
make color corrections with curves, etc. Now I find the s/h tool can
do
a lot of the work, but not consistently on all images. Here is an example.

In two quite different images A and B, I Alt-drag the Level slider to locate the darkest shadow points and set the Color Samplers. They
both
happen to have rgb values close to 18/18/20. After running the s/h
tool
with its default settings, image A’s Sampler values drop to 5/5/6,
and
image B’s Sampler values jump to 60/60/65.

In image A, the s/h tool not only bring out lots of shadow details,
but
dropping the Sampler values to 5/5/6 also sets a good black point to result in great contrast. I only need to tweak the default settings a bit to finish the job.

In image B, the s/h tool also brings out lots of shadow detail, but fails to set a good black point and results in a washed out look. No amount of tweaking of default settings will bring the Sampler values below 18/18/20. In situations like this, I have to go back to my old
way
of correction.

Why would the s/h tool behave so differently on these two images? Is there a way to force the tool to nail down the desired black/white points and still make shadow/highlight adjustments? Thanks.

Try increasing the Black Clip percent in the Adjustments section at the bottom of the Shadow/Highlight dialog box. (You have to check "Show More Options" to see this.) You may also try reducing the Tonal Width in the Shadows section of the dialog box. Images differ; one setting doesn’t fit all.

Bob Shomler

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