Exercise 12: Managing Tone

This was quite an interesting exercise as it made me review, and change, my processing technique.


When processing a Raw image, I used to make adjustments first in Lightroom and then in Photoshop. The Photoshop adjustments included checking the black point and white point using Image/Adjustments/Levels. However, Exercise 12 indicated that these points should be set first, before other adjustments.


Therefore, I reviewed a number of images and set the black point and white points in Lightroom. Rather than use the sliders, I did this by hovering the cursor over the histogram and then holding down the cursor in the 'exposure' area and adjusting the curve so that it touched the right side without clipping (white point) and then repeated the procedure within the 'blacks' area of the histogram to set the black point on the left-hand side.


Having set the black pint and white point, my next adjustment was the White Balance. By clicking 'W', I used the White Balance dropper to select a neutral colour. Where a neutral colour was too difficult to isolate, I used the Temp slider. Other adjustments were made as normal using the Tone curve, contrast and clarity sliders before an element of sharpening.


Following the Lightroom adjustments, I opened the images in Photoshop in order to 'convert to the profile' from ProPhoto RGB to sRGB to avoid the images looking flat and de-saturated if sent on the Web.