And give a way to input numeric values would be very helpfull too.
Any improvement at all in this area would be very very welcome. The currently provided methods of adjusting local-adjustment sliders (on Windows) simply don’t work for me, its far too difficult and far too slow to attempt any kind of fine adjustment.
I am reasonably new to this forum although I have been using DXO for many years but having just downloaded PL5 I am really disappointed that this function is not updated. Trying to make very small adjustments is almost impossible which is what you want. Making large adjustments means your photo is wrong in the first place and that is all you can do with the way the adjustment levers work now. I have two issues with DXO and this is one of them. Get this right and this will be a major step forward and it should not be difficult to have a local adjustment pallet. Just added my vote to this.
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If you are using the Windows version, click on the local adjustment slider you want to adjust with your mouse and pull the pointer to the right while holding the button before moving it up and down to adjust the slider. The farther to the right of the slider you pull your mouse, The slower the slider moves and the granularity is increased. Unfortunately, most people don’t know that feature exists in the Windows version. It allows users to adjust the LA sliders by very small amounts.
Mark
Thanks Mark. Neat trick so thank you.
Andre
Just realised this request dates from January 18! Why are you ignoring it DxO? @StevenL
Great request @John-M. Upvoted. To quote myself about the local adjustments equaliser:
The missing piece is a modifier key – it could be shift or option, which when pressed slows the sliders down to 1/5 normal speed. What happens to me now is what some of you have described. I am aiming for Highlights -10 and have to settle for -7 to -14, whatever I can hit which is roughly in the range. Trying to hit a specific number is very difficult. Or Exposure +20, I end up trying four or five times before I get close with numbers between +12 and +36.
It’s all we need to make the equalisers much easier to use. The same modifier key could also make global palette adjustment sliders less sensitive.
Don’t seem to have this feature on Mac.
I believe you are correct about that Alec. If I recall correctly, @Joanna indicated earlier in a year that this feature is not available for Macs.
Mark
And @Joanna said again in recent post: What's the best thing about PL5? - #96 by Joanna
So perhaps a better solution on Mac?
Moving the pointer to the right as mwsilvers say is NOT PRECISE ENOUGH, and even drives most of the time mad to get the good value (to far to the right, not enough far to the right, ohh seems good, aarrrgghh I didn’t slide in a straight line !!!).
Definatly not a usable solution.
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It may not be an ideal solution, but with practice you will be able to put in precise values.
Mark
I practise it since lot of time (don’t remember when it appears but I have a photolab licence since v3).
And no. This is not usable.
Unless maybe if I change my mouse setting (having it move slower) everytime I use photo lab. And this is neither a good solution.
This is why now I often switch to an other software to make subtil adustments after demosaicing in photolab.
Even if photolab could have make them.
I know it is very difficult to use the tool this way. I struggled with it for quite a while myself. I’m not sure what size monitor you have. Mine is a 28 inch 4k monitor. I don’t always need precise values for every local adjustment slider, but when I want one I can achieve it with this technique.
Mark
I can’t understand how it is possible to create tools and kill their real usefulness just by not giving a way to easily enter precise values in them. That’s not the hard part to develop isn’t it ?
So why ?
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It reminds me a time when majority of 3d software runned to have the same functionality as other 3d softwares. On the paper they had same functionality. But when using them, this was not the same at all. Some were unusable. And with time those softwares, even if they had some great part in them, died.
You are asking a question I can’t answer.
Mark
Yes, to keyboard control to fine tune sliders! Absolute must-have.
Regular (arrow) single keystroke to move by a single smallest unit,
holding shift+arrow to move five or ten units for larger, quicker adjustments (ACR has this behaviour).
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Of course, if everybody were happy with moving the sliders to a palette, rather than the equaliser, this problem would disappear, because we would then have text boxes or stepper controls just like regular adjustments.
Unfortunately, there seems to be two camps…
- Don’t you dare take away the “U-Point” equaliser
- We want local adjustments for everything
And, equally unfortunately, there is no way the two can both be satisfied.
If any more complexity were to be added to the equaliser, it would soon get too large and unwieldy, getting in the way of seeing the effect of changes to smaller areas. As it is presently, we need to zoom in considerably to stand a chance of seeing what is happening, only to lose the context of the change for the whole image.
I had the idea of providing a right/Ctrl click popup that showed a small “context menu” type popup dialog with a text field and slider, but that is also going to consume far too much space and obscure seeing the effect of a change.
U-Point was a wonderful idea for when there was only a limited number of adjustments, but the Light section, which I suspect is the most commonly used, already contains eight sliders, the Colour section contains five and the Detail section, which I suspect to be the least used, only two. It is never going to work if people’s lust for more adjustments to be available locally - especially for adjustments that require more than a simple slider (e.g. the HSL adjustment) is ever to be satisfied.
Then there’s the camp who would like to see a more layer based approach, which is already satisfied to some degree with local adjustments but, the idea soon melds into having all adjustments available locally.
The question is - would those wanting fine control of local adjustments be prepared to accept the move to having local tools in palettes on the sidebar, where it would be so much easier to implement and use?
@StevenL would you have anything to add to this discussion?
Supplementary question
Do we really need accuracy when I believe the idea behind U-Point is that you simply adjust until it looks right, not until it matches a certain value?
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Hello, (seems i am the only one to say hello in a post but i will continue)
i voted for it a long time ago (i am a Windows user).
Using the local sliders is regularly uselessly painful, especially for adjusting luminosity (the scale is too big, should be non linear, typically i want to increase exposure by 0.1, 0.3 max on a face for instance). It is not so a question of accuracy for exposure but to use low values.
Who is using the full scale of exposure slider ?
Same difficulty for adjusting white balance/temperature. If you want to apply same value between two pictures, good luck ! (Of course you can copy LA but not as quick and sometimes relevant).
The method Mark is reminding us is too slow to my taste.
Dxo has launched the trend to use palettes in the sidebar (for chroma and luminosity masks adjustments). I find disturbing to be half way, and i am struggling to see consistency in the UI.
The fact that within local adjustments the sliders can hide your working zone without possibility to move the sliders (just to make it disappear with E), is another thing i dislike sometimes.
I would add that it is sort of standard among all other softwares i use or know to have masks settings in the side bar.
Regards
I don’t think there are camps. Just the need to think how to organize things.
Been able to adjust, mask and blend EVERY existing and future tool as needed (with U points, masked layers or anything else), with ease to get very fast, with the right (configurable ?) sensitivity, with instant visual feedback the right value (and very easily been able to reproduce this same value again) is certainly the only camp.
And for sure U points as they exist now with every photolab tool in one equalizer wouldn’t be usable.
@Joanna are we talking here about something in the process of happening or are we speculating in an idealistic mood ?
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Moving the sliders to the sidebar has been openly discussed by DxO and, if you look at some of the Nik Collection apps, you will see it is already there. Plus we already now have some local adjustment tools in the sidebar for mask management.