Black point and white point

Ok. So PL has a blacks slider but no whites slider.

In some (really most) images, I like to set the black point and white point specifically to just before clipping.

How are you folks accomplishing this in PL? Are you just using the curves tool for this purpose? Am I missing something here?

Tom

Just the curve tool.

George

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Have you tried using the ‘Spot’ feature within 'Smart Lighting? That allows you to draw boxes over the brightest and darkest areas on an image. The magic of Smart lighting then adjusts things accordingly. You can then increase / decrease the strength of the smart lighting using the slider.

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I adjust the Exposure slider to “set” the white point then adjust the Black Point slider.

Using the curve tool is probably the best and most straightforward option.

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Here is my routine.

Starting with the SOOC image


The first thing I do is to activate the under and over-exposure warnings under the histogram, as well as the Spot Measure mode on the Smart Lighting tool


Notice how this has slightly “flattened” the tonalities.

Next, I adjust the Luminance Tone Curve to force the highlights and shadows to blow and block


Now, I know where the darkest and brightest parts of the image are to be found. So, I draw a couple of Smart Lighting “spot” rectangles around these areas



(there are two rectangles on the sky but the one on the right is not very visible)

Now, adjust the ends of tone curve until the over/under-exposures markers just extinguish


You have now established the darkest and brightest (back and white) points on the image and Smart Lighting has “equalised” the tones in between. If you find that the white point or the black point still light up the warnings, I find that lowering the top to 250 and raising the bottom to 5 is about right, but that is going to depend on the image.


Now you can start playing with other adjustments. Here is my basic curve for this particular image, along with, more importantly, the Fine Contrast sliders


Finally, I adjusted the saturation on the grass tones and added a Control Line over the sky and made a few adjustments to bring out the cloud detail


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2,253 for the vertical sliders is enough to have all the clipping disappear. It’s the threshold PL uses. For the black and white point you use the horizontal sliders.
You use Smart Lighting before the curves. I’ll try that too and see what happens.

George

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Excellent step by step @Joanna thank you for sharing.

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Thank you everyone. Very helpful.

Tom

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It’s fine if you invent your style, but you should stiil be open and experiment in the free time. Look at photo’s potential, imagine your goal first, and then find the way. For example, I would probably have edited the example by @Joanna very differently, using Selective Tones rather than Tone Curve and VERY different microcontrast and fine contrast settings. If my goal was to get the boat a “metallic” feel, the sky a bit dramatic, and everything else a pure background, I would use SelectiveTones (funny to see many -/+/+/- patterns in my edits), a little of FC highlights, larger FC shadows, negative microcontrast and tune the FC midtones as desired (WB and Sat/Vib being a different story). The difference between ST and TC is in local contrasts and color preservation. Many paths may lead to similar targets, to be trivial. Stay open.

Right.
But the story of the threshold still exists. It’s hard coded in PL. I’ve mentioned that before. Between 2 and 254 there’re no blinkies.

But for printing it might be right to go to about 5 and 250 to force the printer to cover all the white of the print paper

George

I discuss the disadvantages of Selective Tones in this post and related ones


The main problem is that it can produce posterisation in some cases.

Even if it is a wooden boat like this one? :stuck_out_tongue_winking_eye:

Always. And, as I am constantly finding out, don’t stick to older tools when newer ones do the job better.

Agreed but, as you say


This is exactly why I tend to the +/- 5 to avoid artefacts on paper.

When you folks are talking about these numbers, where are you setting them? Are you setting these in the tone curve? “Blinkies” were mentioned
 are you setting your warnings to +/- 5?

Tom

On the steppers for the Tone Curve


We don’t really have true “Blinkies” as such, just the over and under exposure warnings


Capture d’écran 2024-10-30 Ă  12.51.12

Which produce warnings like this


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Thank you @Joanna

Tom

The tone curve tool exists out of 2 axes. The horizontal is showing what is read, the input. The vertical is what is written, the output. Normally the input and output are the same connected through the diagonal. Input x is output x.
The output,vertical ax, is what we see. Blinkies, just a warning, are based on the output.
When changing the limits on the output we compress the output.
When adjusting the input, horizontal ax, for setting the black or white point to the shape of the histogram we do the same. The 2 horizontal sliders represent the values 0 and 255. By moving these sliders we correct the input When the right slider is set to 200 by example we correct the input so that that value becomes 255. Everything above the 200 will become 255 by definition. Play with it and watch the histogram and the blinkies.

George

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Thanks @George

Tom