How much contrast, clarity, vibrance do you use?

[Per P.]

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Hi All,

I am trying to develop my personal style in Lightroom. In that quest I am curious to get a little insight into how much "punch" people like to put into the photographs. I understand that this is highly individual, and that it will be different for each photograph....

 

So, in general, if you follow Scott Kelby then the answer is "as much as possible" but it would be great to hear from some of you which path you are following?

 

Thanks for any input :-)

 

~ Per.

[rob_w]

I find most of my M9 shots are great out of the camera. Probably the most common adjustment is white balance* followed by (minor) cropping and rotation. In most cases clarity and vibrance do not need to be added. But you know for maybe 10% of shots there is a distinct improvement if I do add between 10 and 15 of both. I have never really figured out why this is so. For some time I thought it was due to dull or overcast conditions, but so far there has been no clear pattern. Interested to read the responses to your thread and see what others think.

 

*hope the next fw will fix AWB!

[elgenper]

Don´t think I´ve even touched those sliders since I got my M9 (and the new 35 and 75; my old ´60es vintage lenses can use some help...).

 

I seldom even add any sharpenilng.

 

I never add Tabasco to my fine malt whiskies either...

[drdannn]

It is highly individual. It seems to me that a great percentage of the photos in the forum are punched up quite a bit. It is almost as if LR and other image editing software have become ' a camera' in and of the application. My own preference is to not punch. After all, why have I spent thousands upon thousands of dollars on the best glass made, only to process it like crazy. I have a little 2 year old Canon point and shoot , and I do not care how much PP I do with that. But with the Leica cameras I think more about the shots, and I expect more from myself. Just my opinion. DF

[01af]

"As much as possible"—never heard, or thought, of that before ... but when thinking about it, it sounds like an interesting strategy.

 

So far, usually I try to apply as much as required and as little as possible. But there sure are a few standard settings that I like to apply to M9 files. First, I increase colour temperature from 4,800 or thereabouts to 5,000 .. 5,200. Then, I push brightness from +50 to +60 and pull contrast from +25 down to +20. Finally, I set Clarity to +10, Vibrance to +5, and Saturation to -10.

 

I also change the default capture sharpening settings because unlike most sensors, the Leica sensors don't have AA filters so they need different sharpening. I reduce Amount from 25 to 15, reduce Radius from 1.0 to 0.7, and increase Detail from 25 to 40.

 

I have stored these settings as the new default to apply to M9 files.

 

Then there are a few standard tricks you may wnat to apply to less-than-perfect frames. For example, you can increase Fill Light to 15 .. 50 and then increase Blacks to 10 .. 20. This will brighten up the upper shadows and still retain 'punch', at the expense of the lowest shadows. Another trick is to reduce Exposure and at the same time increase Brightness—this will restore blown-out highlights and keep the mid-tones, at the expense of increased shadow noise (which is acceptable at low to mid ISO settings but may become critical at high ISO settings).

 

In images of romantic or idyllic scenes, or in female or children's portraits, try negative clarity, say, -10 .. -30.

 

To create surreal, comic-book-like effects, try noise-reduction settings at absurdly high amounts, i. e. in the 70 .. 100 range.

 

Finally, don't miss the grain in the new FX section! Adding some grain may look kinky on screen but can camouflage digital noise and also can create the impression of greater visual acutance which may improve the appearance of a print. However don't overdo it.

 

And then I'm sure there are way more tips and tricks ... let's hear yours!

[Per P.]

01af, thanks for great input. May I ask if you are mostly a b/w or colour photographer?

[01af]

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May I ask if you are mostly a b/w or colour photographer?

Mostly colour.

 

For a B/W conversion you'll want to skip the Saturation -10 setting because higher-saturated colours tend to convert to better separated shades of gray. Apart from that, a clean colour image usually is the best basis for a good-looking B/W conversion, so get the tones and the colours right before converting ... except when an alienation is what you're after.

[250swb]

I've never understood the idea that 'out of camera' is best, even for a Leica. All it means is that a committee in Solms has sat around a table and decided for you how your images will look. They've set out an average acceptable norm, an average, something non-threatening. But once upon a time you'd go out and choose a film, and you'd choose that film depending on how you want your images to look. I'd don't know, I must be very old fashioned, but I think the sliders are in ACR to do the same thing, make it my image, not the one Leica's boffins prefer.

 

So I treat it on an image by image basis, but I would normally boost Clarity (mid tone contrast) by +10 to +20. After that I mostly do bigger changes to contrast etc in post processing. But 01af makes a good point about changing the settings according to the type of image, landscape, portrait etc. But it doesn't mean all your images have to come out without your style on them, over time you'll find a character inside the ACR settings that is your signature and suits your work.

 

Steve

[Guest malland]

I've never understood the idea that 'out of camera' is best...

Actually, quite easy to understand: it's the same approach as liking or preferring automatically made minilab prints, or prints from the "corner drugstore".

 

—Mitch/Bangkok

Pak Nam Pran

[johnwolf]

Personally, I think there's too much "punch" being used today. Especially on photo sharing sites, it seems getting noticed almost requires excessive saturation and other such dramas. That's one thing I like about LUF and the pictures posted here -- folks are generally more restrained.

 

Of course it's a style thing, and anything can be effective when done well. But I'd say, as a rule, add the amount of punch that grabs you, and then back it off a bit. Let strong content and form be the appeal and not post-processing.

 

John

[elgenper]

Actually, quite easy to understand: it's the same approach as liking or preferring automatically made minilab prints, or prints from the "corner drugstore".

 

—Mitch/Bangkok

Pak Nam Pran

 

Well, not touching these sliders isn´t exactly the same as staying with ´out of camera´ rendering. Simple global adjustments attempting to ´add punch´ have a tendency of ending up with some kind of ´Velvia look´, which is what John says.

 

Getting a personal style (like, say, Mitch´s strong, gritty B/W:s) takes much more, and cannot be made with just setting a couple of sliders (which, after all, is what the OP is asking for). I don´t know Mitch´s methods, and I´d not try to use them for my images, since I´m not Mitch, but I strongly suspect he adapts his settings to each particular image instead of just applying ´the usual´.

 

For others, it may be local contrast and brightness adjustments, selective sharpening & c. Files from the M9 is excellent work material for that, but not even a Leica will do all your thinking...

[glenerrolrd]

A lot has to do with your subject matter....some scenes ,shooting styles require more or less punch. Portraits often benefit from a lower contrast while some landscapes might benefit from higher saturation...but the point is its hard to generalize.

 

Still when you have 1000+ images back from a trip or assignment ..its nice to get some leverage from presets in LR.

 

For M9 files ...I try to get the WB first , then white and black points . If I have to dodge or burn or use the gradient mask to bring down the sky ..I do it here. I do not generally make any adjustments to brightness or contrast here. I inspect the image for highlights and shadows (edges are workable ...big areas I fix here). My goal here is to get wb and exposure about right without crushing the highlights or shadows back into the midtones.

 

Then I apply a preset ....it adds 20+ clarity ;+10 to the light tones and -10 to the darks and I use sharpening from the LR landscape preset . I use no vibrancy or saturation. This creates a tone curve that has a longer toe from highlights and shadows without burning out or blocking up.

 

If I had more consistency in the light (like 200 images shot at the beach ....I would synch wb,exposure etc off of an initial file.

 

Everything else I try to work with Local area adjustments ..this way I can dodge ,burn even tone ,sharpening etc to a specific area ..rather than doing a global adjustment . Good example is a backlit face ...I might burn up to 1/3 ev into the face rather than lighten the whole person. I try to avoid fill or pulling back the highlights because they are global adjustments . (I use them but in moderation ..no 100% adjustments ).

 

You can see the presets that Seth Resnick uses in his LR3 or the old LR2 book . This guy is a high volume stock shooter and I think a good reference for what commercial standards look like. They are for Canon but a good example of what the output looks like.

 

IMHO ..desaturation is a style rather than a standard and can add plenty to an image but thats the "art " side of processing. Leica followed the desaturated slightly cyan tint in the recent brochures as does Ralph Lauren in some of their advertisements. I know many pros (that grew up with film) that swear by using K6500 for everything (gets quite RED at night). This works but I feel its a personal choice.

 

John s advice is good ..get it to the point you say WOW and then back off some..the images wear better over time. I am thinking maybe only +10 clarity for my preset .

 

The presets are way different for Nikon and here vibrancy and saturation help.

 

Keep in mind that there really is no such thing as "straight out of the camera" . Adobe creates a adobe standard....this is what adobe s engineers feel creates a pleasant repeatable raw conversion. They also have many camera standards that are designed to match the in camera JPEG processing. They also have default settings for almost everything (which you can zero). Capture One ....has a much stronger settings and a nice tuned output to the M9 file. But these are only straight out of the box in the sense that you accept the raw convertors standard . Don t in any way disagree that less is more .

[Guest malland]

...Getting a personal style (like, say, Mitch´s strong, gritty B/W:s) takes much more, and cannot be made with just setting a couple of sliders (which, after all, is what the OP is asking for). I don´t know Mitch´s methods, and I´d not try to use them for my images, since I´m not Mitch, but I strongly suspect he adapts his settings to each particular image instead of just applying ´the usual...

Per, you're right I process each of my pictures individually; but for high volume output batch processing is essential and what Roger Dunham writes makes sense.

 

After doing B&W almost exclusively for four years, I now am doing much more color. I have a workflow example, which, as it may interest some people I'll quote below, for using the combination of Aperture 3/Color Efex 3/Viveza 2 in a thread titled Using Expressionist Color (post #14). Using Lightroom, the principles would be the same. More examples, of color photographs processed with this approach can be seen here

 

...these pictures are first "developed" from RAW using Aperture 3, in which I also apply some Definition as well as mild Sparpening anf Edge Sharpening, and sometimes White Balance and, if necessary, Exposure adjustments. I also set the Recovery and Black Point to minimize the blown highlights and completely black areas because I want a fairly flat file for processing in Color Efex, whose Film Effects module increases contrast and can easily get the color completely out of whack if the files have a lot of contrast already — particularly the Kodachrome 64 preset, which can easily ruin yellows and reds.

 

When applying the Kodachrome 64 preset, I look at its tone curve which is an "S" curve modified with a bump-up in the mid-tones. If the mid-tones end up too light, one can pull down that bump-up towards a normal S-curve. The other adjustment to avoid weird reds or yellow, I mention earlier, which is to put down a Negative Control Point so that the original color in the file is not effect — and one can move the slider on the Negative Control Point if one wants the Kodachrome 64 preset to affect thet volor only partially.

 

The next step is to use Viveza 2 on the file that has been processed with Color Efex. Sometimes the only step I do here is to apply Structure (usually in the range of 20-50) if the file needs more mid-tone contrast; but, unless one wants a gritty result, it's best to keep to the lower end of this range. For some files in Viveza I apply overall contrast adjustments and for some also some burning and dodging.

 

Finally, back in Aperture 3, which has a very good full-sreen view, and a 100% view, I inspect the file and often apply a small contrast increase using Levels, sometimes supplemented by Curves. Sometimes I also do some minor burning and dodging and apply a Vignette.

 

...I should reiterarate that I don't really think in terms of simulating Kodachrome 64 when using Film Effects: rather, I think of this preset as one look and search to get the look that I want for that particulalr picture, in fact; for each picture I try several of the different film preset to see which one works the best. In this case, of this series it's just worked out that the Kodachrome 64 preset has worked the best, although I have edited it's application, as described above.

 

—Mitch/Bangkok

Pak Nam Pran

[elgenper]

Interesting to see your colour work too, Mitch. It´s certainly not just a translation of your B/W style, but kind of a new language, more ´Egglestonian´ if you don´t mind the association. And it certainly wouldn´t work with ´out of the camera´ rendering either.

 

But, this style also demands large depth of field; it´s either small-sensor or fast-film+stopped-down WA. I use it sometimes; a small-sensor camera is very convenient, and draws in a special way. A FF Leica with fast lenses OTOH encourages one to use a radically different way of seeing, isolating a significant detail in a recognizable but toned-down setting. And for this way, adding artificial ´punch´ is seldom desirable. This second way certainly isn´t the ´Mitch Way´ as I perceive it, but if there is a ´Per Way´, it would be part of that.

 

As for the batch processing aspect, I realize that many of you guys come back with far more exposures than I normally do, so your point is relevant, of course. Even I am dependent on quickly going through my new shots with a decent standard rendering, but that´s part of the workflow, not the final result.

[Per P.]

Dear All,

Thank you very much for insight and inspiration. Can I just mention to my namesake ElgenPer that I was not suggesting that a personal style is achieved by pushing a few sliders

 

But if you consider Lightroom the successor of a darkroom I am sure you would agree that we add quite a bit of personal interpretation after the actual shot. So it can be a considerable part of your personal style.

 

~ Per.

[elgenper]

Hi All,

.... I understand that this is highly individual, and that it will be different for each photograph....

....~ Per.

 

Dear All,

Thank you very much for insight and inspiration. Can I just mention to my namesake ElgenPer that I was not suggesting that a personal style is achieved by pushing a few sliders

 

But if you consider Lightroom the successor of a darkroom I am sure you would agree that we add quite a bit of personal interpretation after the actual shot. So it can be a considerable part of your personal style.

 

~ Per.

 

Per, I do hope I have not sounded condescending or anything; that wasn´t my intention at all.

 

And, as the quote from your OP clearly shows, you´re well aware of the need for individual treatment.

 

Anyhow, we all got a good discussion (), and as a bonus we got an insght into Mitch´s new work....

[ggits]

Very good "01af"

 

I tried yours recommendations out. Not bad. Not so sure regarding your WB - since I like to make WB ref before I make my shots !

 

For B&W I am not so sure at all. Did the old B&W film in the 50 to 70 have the same dynamics from Black to White as we have today ? They seem to have sharper jump from one black level to the next -- and then soften this up with Grain.

 

I am a total ???? when it come to process my B&W. Not happy at all ! Missing some attitude !! So every welcome with attitude in B&W.

[Per P.]

Per, I do hope I have not sounded condescending or anything; that wasn´t my intention at all.

 

And, as the quote from your OP clearly shows, you´re well aware of the need for individual treatment.

 

Anyhow, we all got a good discussion (), and as a bonus we got an insght into Mitch´s new work....

 

No offence taken at all Per

 

This has been a great thread and I am grateful for both the inspiration and insight!

 

~ Per.

[Guest malland]

Interesting to see your colour work too, Mitch. It´s certainly not just a translation of your B/W style, but kind of a new language, more ´Egglestonian´ if you don´t mind the association. And it certainly wouldn´t work with ´out of the camera´ rendering either.

 

But, this style also demands large depth of field; it´s either small-sensor or fast-film+stopped-down WA. I use it sometimes; a small-sensor camera is very convenient, and draws in a special way. A FF Leica with fast lenses OTOH encourages one to use a radically different way of seeing, isolating a significant detail in a recognizable but toned-down setting. And for this way, adding artificial ´punch´ is seldom desirable. This second way certainly isn´t the ´Mitch Way´ as I perceive it, but if there is a ´Per Way´, it would be part of that...

Tack för att titta på mina bilder, Per.

 

If onlyI had Eggleston's incredible color sense... Actually, Eggleston is difficulty to appreciate fully by looking at books rather than at his prints. Before I had seen his prints, I had the feeling that Eggleston was interesting mainly because each of his pictures posed the question, "why is this a photograph?"; but after seeing a large retrospective exhibition, I was simply blown away by his sense of color.

 

Interesting thought that pictures with a lot of bokeh require a different type of technique for the processing. It's not something that I've thought about previously, but it makes sense that a different type of aesthetic has a different look and therefore require different processing.

 

—Mitch/Bangkok

Tropical Light

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[01af]

Not so sure regarding your WB—since I like to make WB ref before I make my shots!

I mostly shoot with the "Daylight" preset. If you set your WB specifically for every shooting situation then I guess you're better off not to tamper with WB in the post-processing anymore.