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.
The most intuitive way to set black and white points would be to set them on the histogram itself, not using adjusters in exposure tab. Just a thought…
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Your point is well taken. It’s just somewhat confusing when seeing the black, but not the white slider in the exposure tab.
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Maybe it’s easier to remove the black slider?
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I don’t know. I was just thinking more about users new to the software like myself. Getting used to doing things differently takes a bit of patience. I’m a ACR user for many years and not seeing that white slider threw me. Ingo has now started me thinking in a new direction by using the histogram for setting the w&b points.
Well…
Andy made a feature request, which in fact was only a change of a few lines of code
The feature you suggest will be a lot more work (lines of code, testing etc), so will have lower priority at least.
That does not mean, we don’t think about it.
Ingo
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That’s good to know!
Thanks, Mike
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Isn’t it the case that what Lr / ACR calls the ‘whites’ slider, that is more inline with our ‘Exposure’ slider? And what LR / ACR does with their ‘exposure’ slider is more of a curves / brightness adjustment in LR?
When raising the exposure slider in Lr / ACR, it doesn’t start to (really) clip the whites, it pushes the more towards it… it compresses the highlights.
Our (RT) exposure slider actually clips whites, so it adjusts the whole range (as it should do IMHO, because that is what a camera does with EV correction).
So, if you’re used to work in Lr / ACR by ‘set blacks, set whites, set exposure, …’ I think it’s the same as in RT do ‘set blacks, set exposure, adjust curve, …’.
LR’s ‘exposure’ slider does something different to what a mathematically correct ‘EV correction’ would be. A lot of people often describe to ‘just fix the exposure to be like the one in Lightroom’ but it isn’t that simple :), and I think it isn’t correct.
Setting black, setting exposure, and then in a regular curve-adjustment take the 50% point and pull it up and down straight to modify your exposure should get you 95% there of the LR blacks, whites and exposure sliders… with the benefit in my mind that the exposure slider works more like your EV correction in your camera (so a picture taken at -2 EV, and putting the exposure correction at 2.0 will actually be ‘correct’) and that while you’re working with a curve anyway, it’s easier to fine tune it more to do what you actually want, instead of grabbing things like highlight-recovery and shadow-recovery.
edit: As always, correct me if I’m wrong :).
“I think it’s the same as in RT do ‘set blacks, set exposure, adjust curve, …’.”
What you are describing here is exactly what I have found to work in RT. I think it’s a better way to go, even after making a new LR preset to control contrast as suggested by Andy Astbury.
M
A word of caution about about ‘setting black and white points’…
Personally, I NEVER SET THEM - the whole idea is fraught with bear traps further down the line, and here’s why.
No monitor can DISPLAY BLACK 0,0,0 - my hardware calibrated 27" Eizo runs 10 bit colour and still only manages to get down to 2.23L*
Most print papers can’t repro ‘blacks’ below 14,14,14.
And the brightest ‘white’ you can print is PAPER WHITE, which is always far removed from 255RGB!
Setting a zero black point looses deep shadow detail by crushing it to a black that struggles to be displayed, and certainly gets lost in print.
And having a white point of 255 risks the same in highlight detail.
It all depends what your end use is going to be - jpegs on the web or a tablet are okay with set white and black points, but images destined for print or pre-press really do have to be processed with a gentler approach!
Just saying folks… 
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