Lightroom 4 : whites slider v highlights slider.

jerry12953

jerry12953

Suspended / Banned
Messages
12,421
Name
Jeremy Moore
Edit My Images
No
Having been a Lightroom 4 user for a few months now, I'm still haven't got to the bottom of this one....

In what way do the white slider and the highlights slider differ? How do their effects differ?

I've rescued some images with blown out highlights by using both of them, but to reduce normal highlights I don't really know which one to use.

Can anyone advise?
 
White slider affects the whole image, so changes contrast too.
Highlights tries to just tweak the highlights.
I also find it confusing which one should be used in any particular image!
 
I don't think that is right. Have a look at the histogram: the whites slider primarily affect the 90-100% exposed points, the highlights between 70 and 90% exposed. They will both drag the rest of the image up and down though otherwise you can't maintain balance across the whole image.
 
arad85 said:
I don't think that is right. Have a look at the histogram: the whites slider primarily affect the 90-100% exposed points, the highlights between 70 and 90% exposed. They will both drag the rest of the image up and down though otherwise you can't maintain balance across the whole image.
Click to expand...

I just went and checked.
What I said earlier is definitely how I would describe it....

Though it would probably have been clearer if Id' listed them the same order as LR.
Here they are swapped over.
Highlights tries to just tweak the highlights.
White slider affects the whole image, so changes contrast too.
 
I'm still not absolutely convinced that v4 is an improvement over v3. In v3 I used to open the shadows up and add blacks to give a saturation boost in almost all images, then work on the highlights if necessary. Finally I'd adjust the exposure.

Now the black slider seems less effective (or, to put it another way) more subtle, and I'm using much higher values on the slider scale to get the same kind of result. Same goes for opening the shadows up.
 
jerry12953 said:
Having been a Lightroom 4 user for a few months now, I'm still haven't got to the bottom of this one....

In what way do the white slider and the highlights slider differ? How do their effects differ?

I've rescued some images with blown out highlights by using both of them, but to reduce normal highlights I don't really know which one to use.

Can anyone advise?
Click to expand...

Whites and blacks sliders set white and black point - that is cutoff points on the image. Its similar to what you do with levels tool in Photoshop and the likes. As such it remaps the whole image to stretch between those black and white points (i.e. it affects the whole range). Highlights and shadows I affect the corresponding regions (on the histogram) but not the whole image. I.e. with highlights slider you just stretching or compressing the highlights region without changing midtones and similarly for shadows. The highlights basically define lower border of highlights region (white being the upper border) and the shadows define upper border of shadows region (black define the lower border).
 
The sliders don't work in the same way as LR3 so theres not really a direct comparrison, if you hold your curser over the histogram you'll see the relevent slider highlighted, this helps show the area it affects mostly.
 
Right....

In the real world, I'm used to treating the blacks completely differently to the shadow areas (open up shadows, close down blacks) It might not be logical but it works.

I suppose the truth is I don't entirely understand black point and white point......

Does anyone use the whites and highlights sliders in the same way?
 
jerry12953 said:
I suppose the truth is I don't entirely understand black point and white point......
Click to expand...

That is easy to explain - white point is maximum white and black point is minimal black. Suppose (for simplicity) you have an 8 bit file - this means each of your R, G and B channels will have pixels with numerical values in 0..255 range (0 is the darkest one and 255 is brightest). Black point then is basically selecting what a 0 will be and white point - what 255 will be.

So if you say set black point at 15 and white at 243 then the whole range 15..243 will be remapped to fit between 0..255 again (so you boosted your blacks and whitened your whites) - it is effectively stretched. It is equivalent of applying this type of composite curve:
Code: 
    __
   /
__/
Lightroom allows you to do the opposite as well - select black point at say -5 and white at 260 will end up remapping the whole range to fit 0..255 compressing it (so the blacks get lighter and whites get darker). It is equivalent of applying this type of composite curve:
Code: 
   |
  /
 /
|

Hope this helps.
 
Last edited:
Thanks for the explanation, alex. It will help me to master the technicalities of digi!

Unfortunately, I've never got to grips with curves either. That's why I find Lightroom so good. Just a few sliders to play with.... it is a shame for me that whites and highlights seem to do roughly the same thing. I need to go further along the learning curve, I think.
 
jerry12953 said:
Thanks for the explanation, alex. It will help me to master the technicalities of digi!

Unfortunately, I've never got to grips with curves either. That's why I find Lightroom so good. Just a few sliders to play with.... it is a shame for me that whites and highlights seem to do roughly the same thing. I need to go further along the learning curve, I think.
Click to expand...

Ok in this case try to think of both of them in the simple terms - white point define what will be whitest white and dark point defines what is the blackest black. As you move the sliders to adjust the whole range between the white and black point gets adjusted to what you set to be new white and black. Such that there will be nothing below the new black (all data below that level that was previously visible will be turned into pure black) and there will be nothing visible above the new white (all the data above the new set white will be turned into pure white). Because the LR changes non destructive you can move them back and forth trying to set right balance.

Basically I would say you initially need to set the white and black to set the whole scene overall range and then adjust the highlights shadows by using highlights and shadows slider to bring up/hide details in those regions.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top