Digital Focus
Basic Editing in LR 2.5–
Basic Panel
The Basic panel contains the main tools for adjusting the photo’s white balance, tonal scale and color saturation. This panel is divided into four panes: the Treatment, where you have an option to work in the original color or in a grayscale version of the file; the White Balance (WB) for color adjustment; the Tone for tonal adjustments; and the Presence for midtone contrast adjustment and color enhancement.
Color Mode Treatment
This pane gives you the option to edit your file in the original color or in grayscale version (Image 14). Clicking the word Grayscale automatically strips the file of colors. All the other controls, i.e., the white balance, tonal adjustments, etc. are still available except the Vibrance and Saturation sliders.
Setting the White Balance
By default, LR will use whatever white balance setting that the camera used when the photo was taken to display the photo. You may opt to change this if you think it is the wrong white balance, or to fine-tune it if you think a color cast still exists in the photo. You may also decide to ignore the correct white balance, and instead change the overall colors of the photo by deliberately making it warmer or cooler (Image 15).
There are two ways of setting the white balance in LR: choose a white balance preset option or click an area in the photo that you want to specify as a neutral color with the white balance tool.
White Balance Presets
On top of the WB pane is the WB pop-up menu (Image 16). The default choice is As Shot, which uses the camera’s white balance settings used when the photo was taken. If the camera’s white balance settings are not available, then the Auto option is the default.
If you used the wrong white balance setting in the camera or you think the camera setting is not accurate, then click the word or the double-arrow button to access the preset options. If the photo being edited is a camera raw file, then the list includes Auto, Daylight, Cloud, Shade, Tungsten, Fluorescent, and Flash (Image 17). These are the same white balance settings commonly found in a DSLR. Auto calculates the white balance based on the image data. It is, therefore, most effective when something white is present in the photo.
When the photo being edited is a rendered file like JPEG or TIFF, then the only options available in the WB pop-up menu are As Shot and Auto.
When the White Balance Selector tool or the Temp and Tint sliders are used, LR automatically sets the option to Custom.
White Balance Selector Tool
Before the WB pop-up menu is the White Balance Selector tool ( Image 18). To use it, simply click it ( or press W) and move it into an area of the photo that should be a neutral light gray. Avoid spectral highlights or areas that are 100% white.
Before you use the tool, set the tool options in the toolbar (Image 19). Auto Dismiss sets the White Balance Selector tool to automatically return to the tool well after clicking only once in the photo. If you uncheck it, then you have to manually return the tool to the tool well by clicking on the well by clicking the button Done, or by pressing W again. Show Loupe displays a close-up view of the pixels under the White Balance Selector tool and their RGB values. Removing the check temporarily hides the loupe. The Scale Slider changes the magnification factor of the loupe.
As you move the White Balance Selector tool over different pixels, the Navigator displays a preview of the white balance to be applied.
When you click the White Balance Selector tool on the area in the photo, the Temp and Tint sliders in the Basic Panel automatically adjust to make the selected color neutral, if possible.
Temp and Tint Sliders
If you want to manually refine the result of the WB Selector tool or the WB preset options, use the Temp and the Tint sliders (Image 20). Temp slider fine-tunes the white balance using the Kelvin color temperature scale. Move it to the left to lessen the warmth and to make the photo appear cooler. Move it to the opposite direction to make the colors more warm.
You can also use the number field to type in a specific Kelvin value in the Temp to match the color of the ambient light. For example, if you shoot under photo tungsten lights and the photo tungsten lights are often balanced at 3200, then type in 3200. Your photo should appear color balanced. This, however, is available only if you are working with camera raw files. If you are editing JPEG, TIFF or PSD files, then you work in a scale of -100 to 100 rather than the Kelvin scale. Rendered files like JPEG and TIFF already include the temperature settings in the file, so the temperature scale is more limited.
The Tint slider fine-tunes the white balance to compensate for a green or magenta tint. Move it to the left (negative values) to add green to the photo and move it to the right to add magenta.
Since using the sliders is a bit unprecise, you can click on the number field and use the Up and Down Arrows keys to increase or decrease the values of the temperature and/or the tint.
Modifying the Basic Tone
To adjust the exposure and/or contrast of your photo, you can use the Auto Tone option and then refine the result using the different tonal sliders.
Auto Tone
Clicking the Auto Tone button or pressing Command + U for the Mac OS or Control + U for Windows (Image 21) automatically maximizes the range of tones in the photo while minimizing highlight and shadow clippings. When you use the Auto Tone option, the adjustments are automatically reflected by the different sliders in the pane. You can use the Auto Tone as a starting point and then refine the result using the other specific tonal controls (Image 22).
Basic Tonal Adjustments
The Exposure slider sets the overall image brightness, with a greater effect in the highlight areas. Adjust the slider until the photo looks good and the whites are at the right level. As you do this, constantly check the histogram to avoid tonal clippings. Exposure values are in increments equivalent to f/stops. An adjustment of +1.00 is similar to increasing the aperture by 1 stop. Similarly, an adjustment of -1.00 is similar to reducing the aperture by 1 stop. The Recovery slider reduces the tones of extreme highlights and recovers highlight detail lost (clipped) because of overexposure during shooting. LR can recover detail in camera raw files if only one or two channels are clipped.
The Fill Light slider is used to bring out more details in the shadow areas without losing the blacks. Use this if your photo was slightly underexposed. Take care not to overapply the setting because it will reveal the noise in the photo. The Blacks slider increases the areas that become black, sometimes creating the impression of increased image contrast. The greatest effect is in the shadow area with less impact on the midtones and highlights.
Sometimes, after performing the basic tonal adjustments, there is still a need to adjust the overall brightness and contrast of the photo (Image 23). The Brightness slider adjusts the overall brightness of the image as it affects mainly the midtones. Before using this slider, determine first how bright the highlight is by setting the Exposure value, the shadows by setting the Blacks; then set the overall image brightness using the Brightness slider. Large brightness adjustments can result to shadow and highlight clippings, so you may have to readjust the Exposure, Recovery, or Blacks slider after adjusting the overall brightness.
The Contrast slider increases or decreases the overall image contrast, as it spreads out the histogram to achieve the full range of luminance. When you increase the contrast, the middle-to-dark pixels become darker, and the middle-to-light pixels become lighter.
Instead of manually moving the sliders, you can also change the tonal settings by selecting the number fields (Image 24) and using the Up and Down Arrow keys to change them.
Note: Double-clicking the individual slider control resets its value to zero (Image 25). To simultaneously reset the sliders, hold down Alt (Windows) or Option (Mac OS) and click on the Reset Tone or Reset Presence.
Setting Local Contrast and Overall Color Saturation
As the final step in the basic workflow, change the color saturation (vividness or color purity) of all colors by adjusting the Clarity, Vibrance, and Saturation controls (Image 26). (To adjust saturation for a specific range of colors, use the controls inthe HSL/Color/Grayscale panel).
The Clarity slider adds depth to an image by increasing local contrast. When using this setting, it is best to zoom in to 100% or greater. To maximize the effect, increase the setting until you see halos near the edge details of the image, and then reduce the setting slightly. This also has an affect of making the photo appear crisp.
The Vibrance slider adjusts the saturation so that clipping is minimized as colors approach full saturation, changing the saturation of all lower-saturated colors with less effect on the higher-saturated colors. Vibrance also prevents skin tones from becoming over saturated, so use it more when working with portraits.
The Saturation slider, on the other hand, adjusts the saturation of all image colors equally from -100 (monochrome) to +100 (double the saturation).
In the next issue, I will discuss the more advanced features of the Develop module.
