I was just wondering why there is no “Whites” adjustment in the “Exposure” panel as seen in other editing software?
Mike
If you set the tone curve to parametric you have a slider for whites.
Plus, you have settings for highlight reconstruction and hightlight compression.
I see that, but I was referring to the white point not highlights. Clipping is easy to see when adjusting the “black” slider in RT. Why no “White” slider?
You can use the Highlight compression slider for that.
Edit: also, in the Raw tab you have the option to set your white point. Because it’s a raw setting, it’s not available on the Exposure panel.
Rawpedia suggest that you:
use the Exposure compensation and Black sliders to get the image into the right ballpark. Once in the right ballpark, continue with using both tone curves
In practice I find that if the whites are only slightly under the clipping point then you can simply use the Exposure compensation slider to adjust them. However, using the Exposure slider will also affect the midtones so sometimes it’s better to adjust the white point by pulling the top right hand corner of one of the tone curves to the left.
If on the other hand the whites are already slightly clipped then
Thanks for the input, but all of these suggestions seem to be a work around solution. I often want to adjust the whites up more than down, so Exposure compensation doesn’t solve that. I would not want to mess with the “Raw tab” either. Acr, C1, LR etc. all have a white adjustment available. So, please tell me why there is no “white” adjustment slider in RT? That’s all I’m asking. There must be a reason. Thanks.
Can you explain what a white adjustment should theoretically do to your image?
Hi Mike,
in photo editing there are more ways to skin a cat (as some will sa in English).
What you call whites in LR,CR1, etc is just the adjustment of the white point of your image. The replies before provided some hints on how this is done in RT. There is no slider for this, you can do it via the white point in raw or via the tone curve (you know hoe to use a curve right?)
From what I understand, the white adjustment is analogous to adjusting the white point value in levels and I would imagine curves as well.
If that is true, then adding another slider on the Exposure tab only introduces redundancy. No?
No, I don’t think so. It’s all about workflow. Setting the black point in the exposure tab is easy by using the black slider. Would it not be logical to have the same feature available for the white point in the form of a slider. Why have a slider for one and then have to go to curves or some other place to adjust the white point. I know how to use curves, but simplifying and organizing the editing process is a good thing.
M
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Well, if I’m not wrong what you’re asking for is a slider that does exactly the same as the Highlights slider in a parametric Tone curve. And you’re asking why it’s not immediately accessible out of the Tone curve.
Well, as I see it, it’s because with a Tone curve you have a lot more control of what that slider does in your image, and you don’t let anybody decide for you on which luminance the slider starts modifying the image. That’s a lot more powerful than a simple slider, I guess.
That’s all well and good. I know that the power of RT goes well beyond LR, for example. I’m only trying to make the case for a simple approach for adjusting white point for those that choose to do so.
M
In such case, you can open an issue in github and ask the developers to add that feature in a future release.
Not exactly in the case of Lr. The white slider allows you to set the extreme point on the right hand side of the histogram. The workflow in Lr is generally to set the midtones with the exposure slider and then set the two extremes of the histogram with the black and whites slider. It is very quick and @stuntflyer does have a point. I had trouble adapting when I first moved from Lr but now I set the white and black points using the tone curve and don’t use the black slider at all. Once you get used to it, it is just as quick.
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Yes, that would work. Still, I think it disrupts the workflow for those basic adjustments which can be more easily achieved when working all of them in one place, that being the Exposure tab. I would add that it’s the reason why other programs do it that way.
RT is known to be a complex software offering features not seen in other programs. That is a good thing, for sure. Yet, people abandon it because it’s not easy enough to migrate to. Giving a new user a familiar set of adjustment sliders would be a very good thing.
The white slider adjustment seems like a no brainer but, that’s just me.
M
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I’d say that is incorrect use of that setting. It’s a parameter closely linked to your camera sensor, it’s not for artistic adjustments.
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I submitted a feature request for the white slider adjustment in the Exposure tab. Hopefully somebody will see it. If Andy Astbury can get 300 ppi .tif exports to PS, then maybe I can get a new feature too.
I have the strong impression you are talking about “White Balance” in the Color tab…
Nope. Just setting the white point on the histogram via a white point slider in the Exposure tab. The same as seen on the the Exposure tab for blacks and setting the black point.