Please show clipping points in Levels

[Lamont]

Without being able to see the clipping points of shadows and highlights, the Levels adjustment is crippled in my opinion, because I like to set the clipping points very deliberately.  

[Lamont]

Am I seriously the only one who wants to see the clipping points in his image when using Levels? If I may ask, how do you set black and white points if you can't tell where exactly in your image the clipping points are?

[martinlucas]

No, you're not the only one - I'd really like to see this added.

[anon1]

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[s2art]

any news on the clipping in levels panel yet?

[MEB]

Hi s2art,

This was just added to the latest Photo Beta (1.3.5.4). Press and hold the ⌥ (option/alt) key while dragging the sliders in the Level adjustment dialog.

You can get it from here.

[Peter Werner]

Great to hear that the feature was added, as that was one of my major remaining issues with the software. However, I would really have loved to see it implemented as a global setting instead, as I suggested in this thread.

 

I'm currently using the old Photoshop trick of using a color fill layer with very narrow blend-if settings to emulate clipping warnings when working on white background images, but I think building it into the software would be much easier to use, especially for beginners who may not be comfortable with messing with the advanced blending settings. Besides, the blend curves become difficult to control when it comes down to just a level or two of difference between points and they don't support multi-selecting points or nudging them with the keyboard, so it's a bit fiddly to set up.

[00Ghz]

Global should be a better way indeed.

[anon1]

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[Peter Werner]

MBd, as I suggested in the other thread, having the option key held down in Levels, Curves and other Adjustments act as a toggle would probably be a more elegant solution. Basically, holding down Option when dragging the slider would toggle the clipping warning on if it is globally set to off, and it would temporarily disable it if it the global setting is on.

 

With that strategy, customizable thresholds (for instance, it might make sense to set 95% for print work to determine where details may not show up even though they are technically in the file) could also be implemented as part of the global setting without bloating the UI of the Adjustments with clipping warning options.

 

I'd say a toggle button in the main toolbar with a popup with settings similar to the snapping options would be a great way to implement this. That way the feature would also be a lot more discoverable. Most new users would never be able to figure out on their own how to get clipping warnings in Levels in Photoshop.

 

That button's popup settings could even be combined with features like highlighting saturation clipping, Gamut Warning, Broadcast Safe Colour, and Ink Limit Warnings (the latter being something that Photoshop is still sorely lacking). Depending on the user's settings in that popup, the Option-Key toggle in Levels could then also be toggling a gamut or ink limit warning instead of the default clipping warning.