Why don´t you add Shadows/HighLight adjustment to Develop?

[pixfan]

Hi,

 

it is just a question to improve my understanding.

 

The adjustment of shadows and highlights is very ineffective in the develop persona, as you also admit in the FAQ section.

 

So, why don´t you include the much more powerful shadows and highlights manipulation/recover functionality of Shadow/Highlight found in the "Filter" menu?

 

What is the actual point of including "shadows and highlights" in the develop persona, which shows hardly an effect?

 

Regards

Paul

[pixfan]

Maybe someone can respond. I really like to know why are there different Shadow/Highlight recover dialogs.

 

Best Regards

Paul

[pixfan]

Maybe i can get an answer by the Affinity Photo Team. Perhaps my question is unclear, but I think it is not.

 

To give an example: I often use the develop persona and I would highly appreciate if I would not need to leave it in order to get full Shadow/Highlight modification capability.

 

Best Regards

Paul

[Patrick Connor]

Sorry Paul, this is not my area, I'll try to get one oh the photo experts to give a proper response. Sorry about the delay

[pixfan]

Thank you, Patrick.

[James Ritson]

Hi Paul, it's a little complicated but I'll try not to waffle on too much! The Shadows and Highlights adjustment in Develop (also available in Photo as an adjustment layer) is a pure tonal adjustment: it compresses or expands the shadow/highlight tonal range. You are correct that it doesn't appear to be very effective at first - if you choose not to apply a tone curve however (see video here) its effect becomes dramatically more pronounced, and I'm confident you'll recover the full tonal range that your camera is capable of.

 

 

In contrast, the Shadows and Highlights filter is more complicated mathematically and also performs some kind of local contrast manipulation. It is, in effect, a more destructive procedure, and does much more than simply shift the tonal ranges.

 

 

Now, the initial raw development is done in an unbounded colour space, meaning the adjustments like exposure, brightness, contrast and of course shadows and highlights are designed not to clip unbounded (out of range) information: they simply shift, compress or expand the tonal ranges.

 

 

So far, so what? Well, the upcoming Photo 1.5 release will have full unbounded 32-bit support, from Develop through to Photo. This means that if you develop in 32-bit, you'll be able to dive back into the Develop persona at any point during editing and non-destructively alter the tonal ranges. This wouldn't be achievable or work as well if the shadows and highlights adjustments were doing more than simply altering the tonal range.

 

 

We basically have a distinction between purely tonal adjustments, where pixels are being remapped rather than changed, and filters, where pixels are changed (sometimes dramatically). The Shadows/Highlights filter of course falls into the latter category. If it were to be included in Develop, I feel it would sit better under the Details category with the other filter-based options like Detail Refinement and Noise Reduction.

 

 

With all that said, are you having issues with your images and not being able to recover highlight tonal range? I've never really struggled to bring back highlights using Develop unless the highlight information simply isn't there (as in it has been overexposed and truly clipped). If recovering tonal range is a problem, do you have any examples that you wouldn't mind sharing?

 

 

Finally: If you're wanting to get as much dynamic range out of your raw files as possible, I would honestly recommend disabling the default tone curve and applying your own. It's far more effective than trying to recover shadows and highlights separately (this goes for all software, not just Photo). Once I've taken the tone curve off, I tend to drag the highlights slider to the left and then add my own tone curve. I linked to a video above which shows you how to do this, but it's also worth checking out Raw Development Quality as that goes through the same procedure.

 

 

Hope that helps somewhat!

[pixfan]

Thank you very much for your extensive answer, James. It brings some light into the shadows!  :)

 

The effect is indeed better if the default tone curve is "off". I did not notice this since I am using the develop persona for RAWs and also or mainly for jpgs, because of its high convenience.

A big request at that point: When the develop persona is started, "Exposure" and "Enhance" are open. WB and Shadows/Highlights are not. Please allow starting with all open.

 

<< Well, the upcoming Photo 1.5 release will have full unbounded 32-bit support, from Develop through to Photo. This means that if you develop in 32-bit, you'll be able to dive back into the Develop persona at any point during editing and non-destructively alter the tonal ranges. This wouldn't be achievable or work as well if the shadows and highlights adjustments were doing more than simply altering the tonal range.

 

Big hand for this!

 

<<We basically have a distinction between purely tonal adjustments, where pixels are being remapped rather than changed, and filters, where pixels are changed (sometimes dramatically). The Shadows/Highlights filters of course falls into the latter category. If it were to be included in Develop, I feel it would sit better under the Details category with the other filter-based options like Detail Refinement and Noise Reduction.

 

Sounds consistent.

 

Regards

Paul

[mac_heibu]

By the way: You may encounter the same behavior, if you compare Shadow/Highlight adjustment in Photoshop’s "Camera Raw Filter" to Photoshop’s "Highlight/Shadow correction".

[pixfan]

Ok