Digital Focus

Advanced Editing in LR (Part 2)–

Split Toning Panel–LR does not only allow you to convert color photos into B&W, it also allows you to colorize your B&W photos using the Split Toning panel (Image 16). You have an option to add one color throughout the tonal range to create a sepia (Image 17) or selenium toning look, or create a split tone effect (Image 18). Split toning allows you to tint the highlight and the shadows separately. However, the extreme shadows and highlights remain black and white.

Using this panel, you can also create cross-processed look to a color photo (Image 19). I will demonstrate how to use LR to achieve a cross-processed effect in a future edition of this column.

To apply split toning, select a grayscale photo that you took or converted in LR and then open the Split Toning panel. Adjust the Hue and Saturation sliders for the Highlights and Shadows. Hue sets the color of the tone; Saturation sets the strength of the effect. Set the Balance slider to balance the effect between the Highlight and Shadow sliders. Positive value increases the effect of the Highlight slider; negative value increases the effect of the Shadow slider.

 

Instead of using the Hue and Saturation sliders, you can also type a number in the number box. Alternatively, click on the color box (Image 20) to launch the Color Picker (Image 21). The Color Picker is much more intuitive to use than the Hue and Saturation sliders. You can preview the effect in the hue as you click and drag the eyedropper left to right. Dragging it up and down changes the saturation of the hue that you chose.

Grayscale mode images from Photoshop or from your digital camera do not have color data, but you can still colorize them(and apply tonal adjustments) in LR. When you export or edit them back in Photoshop with LR adjustments, however, an RGB copy is exported instead.

Detail Panel

The Detail panel (Image 22) is broken down into three panes: Sharpening, Noise Reduction, and Chromatic Aberration.

 

Sharpening

Sharpening is applied in two stages in the LR workflow: as you view and work on your photos, and when you print or export them. Sharpening is also part of the camera default that LR automatically applies to your photos as you import them into your catalog.

When LR exports, prints, or rasterizes a photo for editing in an external editor, the sharpening setting for the image is applied to the rendered file. We shall discuss output sharpening when we cover the Print module.

While editing your photos, you can sharpen them in the Sharpening pane of the Detail panel (Image 23). To sharpen, zoom in on the photo to at least 100% and drag the 1:1 image preview (Image 24 ) to an area in the photo that highlights the effect of the sharpening adjustment. Then adjust the following:

Amount refers to the intensity of the sharpening process. LR, like similar applications, treat your color image as B&W when it does the sharpening. It looks at the edges in the photo. By definition, edges are where lighter pixels and darker pixels meet. (When you Option (Mac OS) or Alt (Windows) + click on the Amount slider, the photo temporarily changes into B&W enabling you to see the edges better). When you sharpen a photo, what LR does is increase the contrast between those pixels—lightening the light pixels and darkening the dark pixels. The higher the value of the Amount, the more contrast is applied, the more defined the edges become. A value of zero (0) turns off sharpening. By default, LR already applies a sharpening value as specified by the camera in the case of camera raw images.

Radius refers to the number of pixels that lie along the edges that will be affected by the sharpening process. The larger the radius, the more pixels are involved. When sharpening photos with fine details, use lower radius setting, otherwise the details will be lost. Photos with larger details may be able to use larger radius. Note that using too large a radius generally results in unnatural-looking results. Always check the preview or the thumbnail for artifacts when using large settings.

Option/Alt + clicking on the Radius slider will temporarily change the photo into grayscale, enabling you to see better the size of the Radius as you drag the slider.

Details adjusts how much high-frequency information is sharpened in the image and how much sharpening process emphasizes edges. An example of high-frequency photo is one that contains trees. Lower settings primarily sharpen edges to remove blurring. Higher values are useful for making the textures in the image more pronounced. Option/Alt + clicking on the Details slider will temporarily change the photo into grayscale, enabling you to see better the details in the photo as you drag the slider.

Masking controls an edge mask. It is a way of masking some parts of the photo from the sharpening process. For instance, when sharpening a portrait, you can limit the process on the eyes, the hair, the nostril and lips by masking the other parts of the face. With a setting of zero (0), everything in the image receives the same amount of sharpening. With a setting of 100, sharpening is mostly restricted to those areas near the strongest edges.

Press Option/Alt and drag the Masking slider to display the areas being affected (white) versus the areas masked out (black).

 

Note: The technique of pressing Option/Alt and clicking the slider only works if the image is zoomed in at 100% or more.

You can also turn off sharpening by clicking the Detail panel On/Off button. Doing so, however, also turns off the effect of the Noise Reduction and Chromatic Aberration.

 

Noise Reduction

Image Noise is extraneous visible artifacts that degrade image quality. Image noise includes luminance (grayscale) noise, which make an image look grainy, and chroma (color ) noise, which is usually visible as colored artifacts in the image. Photos taken with high ISO speeds or less-sophisticated digital cameras can have noticeable noise. Underexposed photos will also exhibit a high degree of noise.

To reduce the noise in the photo, go to the Noise Reduction pane (Image 25) of the Details panel. Drag the Luminance slider to the right to reduce luminance noise and the Color slider to reduce color noise.

By default, LR sets a 25% color noise reduction for every photo that is imported into your catalog.