Lessons

Lesson Info

LRC Adjustments: The Histogram and The Basic Panel

1 Okay, it's time to start talking about the adjustments 2 inside of Lightroom. 3 We are going to go through pretty much 4 every adjustment panel inside of the developed module. 5 I'm gonna go through them fairly quickly 6 because a lot of them are self-explanatory, 7 but then when we get to specific ones, 8 I'll go to specific images 9 that will be valuable 10 in expressing what you can do with that image. 11 So let's get started. 12 Here in the developed module, 13 you'll find that there's a histogram up at the top. 14 That histogram is interesting 15 because not only does it gives you information, 16 and you can see as I float over it 17 that it tells me that this area is the blacks area 18 of the histogram 19 and this is the shadows area 20 and this is the exposure area 21 and this is the highlight 22 and here are the whites. 23 So it gives you an idea as to where those are. 24 But also if you grab onto any part of this histogram, 25 like say the exposure, 26 I can click and drag...

. 27 And while I drag that area, I am dragging the histogram 28 and I am fixing the photograph. 29 So that's a pretty interesting way to adjust your images, 30 bring the exposures up, 31 come over here, 32 take the shadows back down a little bit or bring them up. 33 I like the way I'm starting to see within the shop, 34 but I want to take the black down again. 35 I want to come over here and grab the highlights 36 and bring those down a little bit. 37 Bring the whites down just a little bit. 38 So that's an interesting way to adjust 39 just so that you know that that's a capability. 40 You can also hold the Option key down 41 and when you click there, now you start to see that area. 42 So if I went to the whites 43 and I held the Option or the Alt key down 44 and grabbed onto that, 45 then you start to see where the overexposed areas are. 46 And the only place I have to worry about, 47 see how our shirt is now coming in? 48 So I can come down until I know 49 that the shirt is not blowing out, 50 but I can let anything else blow out, 51 like for instance, that little part of the door is fine. 52 Then I can go to the black area, do the same thing, 53 hold the Option key down 54 and now you can see okay, 55 the interior of that shop is way too dark now. 56 I won't be able to print anything from that, 57 but if I go like this 58 so that I only have the deep, deep shadows are trouble, 59 that's fine. 60 So that gives me a good idea of what I can see 61 or what I can print in the highlights and in the shadows. 62 The same is true if you click on the sliders 63 and do the same thing. 64 So if I click on the blacks 65 and hold the Option key down, it does the same thing. 66 In the exposure, does the same thing. 67 So no matter where you click in here, 68 if you're clicking on the option, 69 it's going to give you those little indicators 70 for things that are too dark or too light. 71 Alright, now let's go from the histogram 72 and we're gonna pass all of these tools here. 73 So the tools that you see here are your masking tools 74 and your retouching tools, cropping, et cetera, et cetera. 75 We're gonna skip those for now 76 and we're going to go down to the adjustments here. 77 And you'll notice 78 that one of the tools actually is adjustments 79 and that little dot below it tells me 80 that I have adjustments. 81 If I'd cropped it, there would be a dot below the crop. 82 But I've only adjusted, 83 so it's gonna have a dot below the adjustments. 84 And I'm going to zoom in just a little bit here 85 so you can see all the tools. 86 You still can see the critical parts of the photograph. 87 And so I'm gonna start playing with the adjustments. 88 So in the exposure, 89 I'm just looking for the most information I can get 90 on the critical parts of the photograph. 91 So my critical parts are the the girl. 92 This is my daughter. 93 This window, I really wanna make sure 94 that the white in that cloth there is visible 95 and there's lots of texture in it. 96 So I'm playing around with the exposure first 97 to just kind of get the general exposure correct, 98 knowing that I can always fix some 99 of the more detailed areas 100 so I can take the highlights back down a little bit 101 if I need to. 102 I can take the whites down a little bit 103 and kind of make it a little less contrasty. 104 I can take the black down quite a bit 105 to get more richness out of the photograph. 106 I can take the shadows down or up depending on what... 107 and I can get a lot out of that interior 108 on that shop if I want. 109 So, but keep in mind that I have the ability 110 to not only work in these sliders, 111 but later on, I'll be able to go into the masking tools 112 and I can do specific burns and dodges inside of here. 113 So I can work on different parts of the image 114 with masking tools. 115 So I don't have to accomplish everything perfectly 116 inside of the basic adjustments. 117 I just need to get the basics done. 118 Okay? 119 So I'm trying to get like 80 to 90% 120 of the image looking 80 to 90% of the way there. 121 Then I can start really targeting the things 122 that are either problematic 123 or could just be a little bit better. 124 Now one thing that I think would really help this image 125 is a little bit of texture. 126 So I'm going to play around with this texture here 127 by grabbing the clarity slider first 128 and bring that up a bit. 129 When I do that, 130 it's going to add some contrast in the midtones 131 and that really helps things to pop a bit. 132 So clarity is contrast in the midtones. 133 So in the way that contrast takes the darks and the lights 134 and spreads them apart, right? 135 It takes everything from the middle 136 and pushes it out towards the edges 137 so that everything in the darks gets darker, 138 everything in the lights gets lighter, 139 and the middle kind of goes like that. 140 What happens with clarity is it doesn't do much 141 to the left and the right, 142 doesn't do much to the black and to the white. 143 It takes the contrast 144 and it makes the lighter grays lighter 145 and the darker grays darker. 146 So it contrasts the center, 147 and that's why you get kind of a more wrinkles 148 and you get better texture and leaves 149 and you get better texture inside 150 of like bricks and stuff like that 151 because it's all midtone stuff. 152 And so clarity is kind of a really just a contrast knob 153 that's in the center of the histogram. 154 Texture on the other hand is actual texture. 155 So you're gonna start seeing these stones 156 get a lot more grit to them. 157 See that? 158 As I go way over, 159 you can see how the stones get really gritty, 160 but it also creates texture and faces and things like that. 161 So texture is great for landscape photographs, 162 not great for portraits. 163 Negative texture is amazing for skin. 164 And so we're gonna just bring the texture up a little bit 165 because we don't have to worry about her skin too much. 166 She's such a small part of the photograph. 167 So I like the way this is turning out. 168 I'm seeing good texture in this cloth. 169 I'm seeing good texture in the stones. 170 She looks pretty good. 171 I'm getting a lot of information in the darks there. 172 And so I'm gonna zoom out here 173 so that we can see the whole photograph. 174 I'm liking the way this is starting to look. 175 I know that I need to work on the... 176 Like this, 177 the lightness of this path is a little bit too bright. 178 This is a little bit too bright. 179 But the general look of the photograph 180 is about where I need it to be exposure-wise, 181 but now I'm gonna work on the temperature and the tint. 182 Now you don't necessarily always work 183 on the temperature and tint first, 184 even though the temperature and tint are up at the top. 185 That's not necessarily a good reason to start there. 186 If you're going to adjust the exposure on an image, 187 it's better to get your exposure about where you want it 188 before you work on the temperature and tint 189 because contrast and exposure change the way color looks. 190 So it's better to work on exposure down to dehaze, 191 so basically this area, 192 before you work on temperature and tint. 193 So now I'm gonna come back up here 194 and play around with the temperature a little bit, 195 make sure that it looks the right amount of warm. 196 I don't want it to be cool. 197 I don't want it to be too warm. 198 It's gotta be right in the right spot. 199 And then I'm gonna take the tint, 200 and I'm gonna play around with that as well. 201 You can see that's way too green. 202 That's way too magenta. 203 So I'm just kind of playing around with that 204 until it looks about right 205 and I'm really looking at her skin tone 206 is where I'm looking. 207 So if I want, I can hit the Z key. 208 So it zoomed in, 209 but it zoomed into the wrong part of the photograph. 210 In the navigator, I can just drag it down to her 211 and then I can kind of fine tune my temperature and tint 212 to make sure she looks great. 213 So I wanna make sure 214 that she is the proper skin tone. 215 There. 216 So let's zoom back out. 217 All right, now I've got the right temperature intent 218 and now I can play around with my saturation 219 and my vibrance. 220 Saturation, if I take saturation all the way up, 221 you can see how ugly it makes the skin. 222 I mean, it's just really orange. 223 So I'm gonna double click that and take it back to zero. 224 And then if I take the vibrance up, watch this. 225 See how the skin doesn't look quite so bad? 226 It's because vibrance is a smarter tool. 227 It tries to protect skin tones 228 so that they don't look awful when you increase it. 229 So with that understanding then, 230 when you want to get the colors to pop 231 and there's a person in the photograph, 232 don't use saturation. 233 Use vibrance because it will protect the skin tones. 234 So I'm gonna take the vibrance up on this 235 so that I get a little bit more poppy colors, 236 but see how it doesn't hurt her skin tones. 237 Saturation is pretty good in the negative 238 when people are involved, 239 but it's not good in the positive. 240 So I'm gonna choose vibrance instead of saturation. 241 In most cases, vibrance is better. 242 Saturation is kind of a dumb tool. 243 It's not a very good tool. 244 And that's not to say 245 that saturation does a horrible job when it's used. 246 It's just not as intelligent 247 and it's not as subtle as vibrance. 248 So those are our basic sliders. 249 Now there are a couple other things 250 to know about this basic section that are really important. 251 The first is the white dropper tool. 252 When I click the white balance tool 253 and I run it over the photograph, 254 I can choose any spot on this photograph and click on it. 255 If I click on red, it's gonna white balance the red, 256 which is the wrong place to white balance. 257 But this is what it looks like. 258 So we don't want to do that. 259 We want to find a white thing. 260 And by the way, if you hit the W key, 261 it will select that without having to go grab it. 262 And then you can click on anything that is white 263 and you see how it changes based 264 on what the correct white is. 265 So I'm just kind of moving around and selecting white 266 and it's changing based 267 on what it thinks the white balance should be. 268 But see how this is not the right color? 269 That's because when you click on white 270 and that white is in too much in the shade 271 or it's reflecting blue or something like that, 272 it becomes problematic. 273 So white is not a super great place to do white balance. 274 If you can find a gray, 275 like for instance, a gray card, 276 that's a great place to do white balance 277 because it's not reflecting 278 as much of the colors surrounding the white itself. 279 So white balance is kind of a misnomer. 280 It should be called gray balance. 281 But that being said, we don't necessarily need to use this. 282 We can eyeball it, but this is a really great way 283 to get kind of in the zone. 284 So I'm gonna zoom out of this 285 and I'm gonna go up here to this kind of cream color. 286 And if I click on that, it's a little closer 287 to the right kind of white. 288 It's not as bad as that other, 289 but it's still off because it's a cream color. 290 So if I click on the stone, it's more gray 291 and especially if I like get this darker stone here, 292 but it's still a little off 293 because it's probably got a little purple in it 294 or something like that, 295 or maybe some green or something in it. 296 So I'm gonna hit the white balance 297 and I'm gonna go to something 298 that I think is pretty obviously white, 299 which would be these candles. 300 So I'm gonna click on those 301 and that gives me a pretty good white balance. 302 So she looks pretty good, she looks about right. 303 But remember we eyeballed this and did a pretty good job. 304 So I'm just gonna take my temperature back up, 305 get a little bit more warmth in it, 306 and I'm gonna bring a little bit more magenta into it. 307 And I think that's a much better white balance. 308 So I'm pretty good at eyeballing color. 309 If you're not good at eyeballing color, 310 try and find the... 311 use the white dropper tool 312 and kind of find a good white balance. 313 But don't go for the super white thing 314 because it's reflecting way too much color. 315 Oftentimes, it's too bright so there's, 316 it's kind of blossoming in the white 317 and it can't even get a good read on it. 318 So just realize 319 that white is oftentimes a little bit too warm 320 or a little bit too cool if you click it in the shade. 321 It's not the greatest place to get white balance from.