basic panel vs tone curve

[Mircula]

Hi,

I am using Lightroom for a while now.

I shoot in raw and always play around with the adjustments in the “basic” panel.

Then I move to the tone curve.

My question is, when should I move to the tone curve? What is the difference in boosting blacks or highlights in the tone curve panel opposed to the basic panel and when should use which adjustments?

How do you do it in your workflow and why?


Thank you guys,

Mirc

[kiwi]

Mirc. I think you should buy Scott Kelby's book on LR, you'll find it great for all these sorts of questions

[William]

I learn't from Scott Kelby as well , Especially CS2 , I now run LR3 and CS5 , In answer to your question , On the the tone curve give it a slight , What they call an "S" Curve and you should be right

[Mircula]

thanks for the tips.

I am not sure if the problem is that i don't know how to use lightroom. I would just like to understand algorithm which is behind the sliders.

For instance you can push fill light, or you can increase the black and shadow sliders in the tone curve.
Turns out roughly the same, but what is the difference?

That is just an example, but along these lines.

Are things like that explained in kelby's book?

"On the the tone curve give it a slight , What they call an "S" Curve and you should be right"

To be honest. A comment like that does not help me understand anything. I would like to understand what is behind it and base the decision how i want to shape my curve on that, rather than on some rough estimate.

[kiwi]

Yes, Kelby explains it

For these sort of questions its often best to google as well, the adobe tutorials are great

http://www.google.com.au/search?q=lightroom+tone+curve&ie=utf-8&oe=utf-8&aq=t&rls=org.mozilla:en-GB:official&client=firefox-a

[William]

Hmmmm! :confused013 Getting to Technical for me , Have a play and don't worry about how it is achieved by an Algorithm :eek:, First step get it right in "Camera" :)

[maccaroneski]

For instance you can push fill light, or you can increase the black and shadow sliders in the tone curve.
Turns out roughly the same, but what is the difference?

That is just an example, but along these lines.



You can do exactly what the black and shadow sliders do with the tone curve, it's just that the tone curve allows you to do all sorts of other things as well.

This is indeed one of the more confusing aspects as I have been experiencing it - there are several different ways in Lightroom to achieve the same effect, and the materials available around the place tend to explain one method and then another without fully explaining where the two (or three) methods overlap.

[Mircula]

I did watch some videos from Lydia and kelby but they did not go in the detail that much. They explained what happens if i drag the sliders and move the curve, and thats about it....

But not for instance the relation between basic panel and tone curve.

I googled a bit as well, but it is just hard to find these specific corelations....

[Mircula]

I played around alittle bit more, what I really dont get is, that the tone curve does not change when I change the settings in the basic panel, but has sometimes a similar effect if i change things in the tone curve panel and the curve changes.

So where should I do what settings?

That is really confusing... :)

Any other comments most welcome...

[Mircula]

anybody any further explanation for this :)?

[Cliff]

I think you should do what Kiwi suggested originally. Buy Scott Kelby's book. He has 5 pages (in LR3) about using the tone curve to add contrast and 18 pages on using the Basic Panel. No one is going to be able to explain all of that here. Read the book and all may be revealed.
I reckon only Adobe could tell you what specific algorithms are used and I don't think that they would reveal that information.

[Mircula]

Yeah I think you are right. I will try to find it as an ebook somewhere....

[campo]

+1 for Scott kelby books - they are worth every cent :)