auto tone working incorrectly on import

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jcherin

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Hi Everyone,

I am new to this forum and look forward to reading and helping where I can...but for now, I have a BIG prolbem.

The title of this thread is actually not quite correct....but the real title would have been too long... ;-)

The issue is that I don't even have auto tone set up! (read on...)

I was using it on Import with version 2.' but I adjusted my camera and didn't need it anymore.

I downloaded version 2.1 and installed it. Windows XP, 2.4c, 2meg ram, 512k graphics card... RAW images.

The problem is that I don't have it set up to auto tone on import (or anywhere else for that matter...) but my pictures are not only being auto toned BUT auto toned INCORRECTLY!!! They are way over-exposed.

At first I thought a wedding I shot was destroyed and I desperately tried to 'fix' the images (without much success) but then I discovered that if I double clicked 'Tone' to reset the images, they were fine. YIKES!

I am being forced to handle every single one of 15'' images!!!!! That is a weeks worth of work! HELP!

Anyone seen this issue? Any solutions?

With version 2.', when I imported images, I also found that LR was not able to do all the pictures until they were on the screen. Is that correct or should I be able to do a global command and have it do all the images at once -- seen or unseen.

Thanks in advance,
Jeffrey
 
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Jeffrey, it sounds like you are shooting jpegs, right?
Any way welcome, fill in your signature and it saves telling us your system info each time.
Set the develop setting arrowed in the screen shot to none and you should be right. You can reset your already imported files by syncing them in the develop module.

Hope that is the answer you want !!;);)
 
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Hi Geoff,

I shoot RAW. I don't yet know how to sync all the photos to 'not auto'. Can you help with that....?

Thanks for the thumbnail...but is that the auto import dialog box? If so, the windows version doesn't look the same.....if not, what dialog is it? I've looked for it and can't find it.


The way LR is working for me is that the image loads in develop and the auto button is white (meaning NOT auto tone) yet the pictures are blazing. I have to hit 'tone' twice to 'reset' all the sliders back to 'not auto' (even though the 'auto' button was still active (not grayed out).

Clear? Hope so. V1.4 and V2.' worked fine...2.1 seems slower to me and then this issue is a killer.
 
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Check the catalog settings. Here you can set to apply the "auto tone" for all images imported.
 
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Howdy again...
Thanks for the reply's. I appreciate it.

Let me rephrase my need and restate it as a different question....

Remember that my initial problem is that LR2 is 'AUTO' toning, which is NOT ON anywhere and is overexposing all pictures. The 'fix/workaround' is that I need is to double click on the TONE button to clear settings -- at which point I get a good looking picture.

I want all pictures to "revert" to their first, correct setting for that picture as if I just double clicked on the 'TONE' button. I do not want to copy any settings or sync any settings of any one picture to another. I want them all as if they were just imported with no presets added.

Can I do that?

Nowhere in the help files or any forum have I found any info about this.

Might it be that if I 'UNCHECK' everything in the sync dialog box it would reset?

If none of this works, I guess that this becomes a 'feature request'. A, please can we have a 'RESET' option in the sync/copy settings dialog box!

jc
 
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Geoff -- or Kees -- or anyone else...

I have, since my last post, spoken with 2 other people about LR. It turns out that BOTH of them have stopped using it because of the very problem I am having. Both of them didn't realize that it was a BUG. They thought that LR was just LAME and a pain.

One of them was also using 2.1 but the other was using 2.' (I didn't see the issue until 2.1)

So, I am guessing that there are plenty of others out there that are affected and don't even know it....or, like my two friends, stopped using it.

Please help. All input welcome.

jc
 
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Hi Jeffrey

Ok, let's do one part at a time.

For a start, you want to reset to default (not auto-toned), correct? Select all of the photos in Grid view and hit the Reset button in the Quick Develop panel and you should be all set. If you're not, you may have changed the defaults, in which case we'll talk you through resetting the defaults to Adobe's own.

Then we'll work through how to prevent the auto-toning... so a question on that one - when you say it's auto-toning, is it moving all of the sliders to the same position (i.e. exposure +1 or something) or different positions (true auto-tone)?
 
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Hi Victoria,
Thanks for answering...!!!

Part one: Reset All in Quick Develop DOES reset the sliders. (yea!)

Part two: True auto tone. Each picture has different slider settings -- but it is the exposure that has increased. Along with this, in Develop, the "Auto" button is NOT grayed out. Often the image is overexposed too.

jeffrey
 
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Ok, as each slider is different, and the reset button worked, that's definitely applying auto settings rather than defaults, so places to go looking for AutoTone on import (you may have already been here, but hey!)

1. In the Import dialog - check the Develop Settings is set to None
2. In the Preferences > Presets - check 'Apply Auto Tone Adjustments' is unchecked
3. Also check whether they are fresh from camera - if they're been via ACR, and ACR's applying auto settings, that would transfer into LR. Same applies to any other uploader programs that they've been through - check them out.

If that doesn't do the trick, I'd delete/move the prefs file before going any further.
 
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1) did it...did it again. Not checked.
2) nothing checked.
3) Not sure what ACR is....but I copy files directly over in explorer from the card and then import into LR.

so...re: prefs file
1) where is it?
2) will LR recreate it upon reboot and then I go through and change settings to my personal prefs?

jc

ps. Let me also ask you a question about speed of LR. It is very slow on my computer for my desired workflow. In develop it can take 1'-2' seconds for an image to load in....and then some adjustments take too long (not so much with the basic sliders but more with the adj brush). I have checked out many tutorials and I watch the speed at which the brushes work and they are much faster than mine....and when you have 15'' wedding images to look at...yikes. Hence, my concern. I have even started to use Picasa for culling the images down to the ones I want to work on as it works fine (immediately) with the raw images but I want the LR power at least for adjustments.
 
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The prefs file - Windows XP - [systemdrive]\Documents and Settings\[your username]\Application Data\Adobe\Lightroom\Preferences\Lightroom 2 Preferences.agprefs

Yes, LR will recreate it for you, and then you can reset your settings. If you just move the prefs file, rather than deleting, then you could always put it back if it proves not to be the problem.

Speed - where are your raw files stored and how big are they (i.e. which camera)? 2' seconds is much longer than I'd expect. And are you culling in Library module or Develop - and therefore have you rendered Standard or 1:1 previews?
 
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Victoria,

After asking the speed question I actually found some discussions that you have had regarding that issue...(wow - 1 sec to load an image in develop!?).

This may seem lame but has anyone done a tutorial on the basics of LR as "software with a purpose"....??

Like -- how it thinks, why it was designed the way it was, getting the most of that design, even the mention you made of placing the catalog on a different internal drive from the images and how to do that....etc.

All of the tutorials I have seen speak to specific features - modules, adjustment brushes, etc. and not the bigger picture of the software itself....

I KNOW that the folks teaching know their stuff (and I love it...) but sometimes as I watch them I feel something is missing...not from their presentation but from my knowledge of the software's internal design.

I was a trainer for Pinnacle Systems hardware (Alladin DVE) and I know that when I took some time to explain to folks the product from a starting point of basic design info (like I mentioned) a lot more light bulbs went off and it was easier to teach new things because they now had 'hooks' to hang the info on.

This also may sound silly, but I couldn't figure out about 'saving' when I first loaded LR in (not that I know now...but I do use it!). Nowhere could I find any info about that! It was a bit disconcerting to say the least.

Sometimes (as trainers) we can't see the forest for the trees... I want to thank you for sharing your time and knowledge with me/us. You speak understandably to the issue at hand and it means a lot to me.

jeffrey
 
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(we crossed in the mail... ;-)

to answer your note...

I use a Nikon D2'' shooting RAW at highest quality (8-16mg files). The files are on an internal RAID that has more than 6'% free space. My catalog is on the same drive as I have been placing all files for a particular event in one folder.

I was culling images in the Library mode (I understand that it is a 'preview render')...but I found that even as I used it, I could see that LR was working (intensely!) in the background and 'overexposing the film strip images along the bottom or in the grid. Every 1'-2' seconds another image would 'adjust' brighter. Everything just seemed to run slower than I expected.

BTW, PS CS3 runs fine on my computer.

jc
 
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Re: the tutorial - throw a load of questions together and I'll see what I can do. A lot of it's covered in my FAQ book, simply because the questions have come up on forums. Some of the other books - Martin Evening's springs to mind - also cover it from a different angle. Richard Earney & Dave Huss' books have just landed on my doorstep too, so I'll skim those when I have time. It's a good idea though - a kind of 'quick start'.

Culling - it sounds like it hasn't rendered previews in advance. Try selecting them in Grid view and going to Library menu > Previews > Render Standard Previews (or Render 1:1 Previews if you zoom in) and it should flick from one to the next much much quicker. What graphics card do you have in that machine?
 
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this was an interesting exercise.....

I set my view to library/grid small thumbnails (just so I could watch it flick...I hoped) went to library>previews>render standard and it scanned (823 images) then it began to 'render' loooonnnngggg time for each....at least 15 seconds each.

Sorry, no 'flick'!

I use an NVidia GForce FX55'' 512mg.

Also, the thumbnails on the screen continued to update -- and I'm pretty sure that they were not what the renderer gage (upper left) was counting.

Another interesting (annoying?) thing I have found over the months of LR usage -- the only images that render are the ones that are in the thumbnails on the screen. Will this process do all of them or will they continue to wait until the screen image is up? And, can LR be set to do this automatically?

I would also like the mouse wheel to move from GRID line to GRID line -- no matter what size my thumbnails.... (Yes, I have read the "scrolling feature requests")... somehow I would think that it wouldn't be hard from a programming viewpoint to simply cause the GRID to move that way...and that it's not a mouse issue... but what do I know... :-)

jc
 
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When it had *finished* rendering all of those previews, did it flick through happily - or has it not finished yet? Ignore the thumbnails rendering - those will render quicker once the proper previews have rendered - although the preview rendering is on hold while it's building initial thumbnails, so actually bug thumbnails speed that one along.

There's another thread or two floating around about the nVidia graphics cards - do a quick search, because I'm sure a couple of them are speed related.

Here's a couple: http://www.lightroomqueen.com/community/showthread.php?t=4171
http://www.lightroomqueen.com/community/showthread.php?t=2137
http://www.lightroomqueen.com/community/showthread.php?t=3186

Yes, selecting all in Grid view and setting it rendering previews will do all of the selected previews, not just the ones on screen.
 
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I just reskimmed the thread, and didn't see a mention of anti-virus status on your machine. This can be a horrendous performance killer of Lr, if your AV is trying to execute real-time scans of disk writes, because Lr is so disk-intensive.

Maybe mentioned already, didn't see it, just a thought.
 
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I have McAfee running...I will try with it off.

Also, I did find that my NVidia card was set for multiple monitors so I changed that...but no change in speed that I can tell.

Let me ask tho -- what is a good graphics card that is a known benefit to LR?

jc
 
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Actually, most are, with some older nVidia's having some setting incompatibilty problems.

I've never seen a bad report for either Matrox or ATI, in an Lr context. (other than outdated drivers for old cards)
 
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So, to follow up....

I have gone through the computer and made appropriate adjustments based on all suggestions....and here are the (surprising) results.

LR starts up much faster. Maybe 1''% faster.
Library module seems to work very well (after I rendered all photos)....

BUT....
Going to the Develop Module -- individual photos seem to take at least 5x LONGER to stop 'LOADING'!!

BUT...
there seems to be a more understandable process happening to the images...after about 5-7 seconds the sliders become available and I can at least begin to see where the settings are. 'Loading' continues for 2'-3' seconds more.... If the picture is 'overexposed' (back to the original problem) I can hit reset and the image stops 'loading' a bit sooner (as if it has been trying to figure out the 'auto settings).

At least I can move quicker....so thanks to everyone. I really appreciate the assistance.

I will be getting a new computer in the next couple of months...and....well...Maybe I'll start a new PC vs. Mac thread to hear peoples experience with them... :-)

Thanks again,
Jeffrey
 
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Ok, progress!

Now, an explanation of what's happening in Develop...

When you first flick to an image in Develop, it reads the preview you've already rendered - so you very quickly get something up on screen. Then it does a quick read of the raw file and frees up the sliders so you can start working. Then it goes back and does a full read of the raw file and writes that to the ACR cache. Once it's finished all of that, then the Loading bezel disappears. If you flick back to that same photo a few minutes later, it loads the raw data from the ACR cache, which is a bit quicker - so the bigger the cache space (set in Prefs) and the faster the drive that's on, the quicker still (which is why I have my ACR cache on a RAM disk).
 
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There's a little program inventively called "Make RAM Disk" that you can download from http://boredzo.org/make-ram-disk/ - maximize size on Leopard is 2.2gb. And then just set the ACR Cache location in Preferences. Works nicely if you have lots of spare RAM!
 
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