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Duplicate light/dark/shadow/highlight

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hiloboy

New Member
Joined
Oct 10, 2010
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19
Lightroom Version Number
Classic
Operating System
  1. macOS 12 Monterey
Why is there two places that seem identical to adjust the light/dark/shadow/highlight in the development mode? Thanks!
 
There are basically 4 sliders. Exposure, Highlights, Shadows, Whites, and Blacks. They eac affect a different part of the tonal range. Blacks affect the darkest. Shadows the darks but not the darkest. Highlights affect the bright but not brightest tones. and Whites are for the brightests. Exposure affects mostly the middle tones. Howeve each of these ranges overlap into their neighbors to some degree.

If you hover your mouse over the historgam the name of the slider that affects that area of the histogram appears below the histogram and if you have good eyes you can see the that a section of the gray background of the histogram gets slightly lighter and slider represenitng that area of the histogam names gets highlighted.

Conversly if you hover over one of the sliders, the slider name appears under the histogram and the area of the histogram affected by that slider gets sligthly highlighted.
 
Generally each exists for a different reason and gives different results. But to know which ones to explain, which two features that look “identical” are you looking at:

The Basic panel vs dragging in the Histogram?
The Basic panel vs the Tone Curve vs the parametric curve?
The Basic panel vs a local adjustment panel?
 
If you mean when the Tone Curve is set to Parametric, it’s just two ways of adjusting the same value. If you want to visually shape a tonal region of the parametric tone curve, you drag the part of the curve over that region in the Tone Curve histogram. If you want to numerically adjust that same region, you drag its Region slider. Because both adjust the same value, adjusting either one affects both. For example, you can see how hovering the pointer over each region in the Tone Curve histogram lights up the corresponding slider down in the Region section.

Lightroom Classic parametric regions.gif
 
They are different, even though they affect the same tones in the image. Shadows and Highlights in the Basic panel are algorithms, that keep small details out of their adjustments. Pretty complex math. That is why excessive use will create halos. Curves adjusts every pixel of a certain tone to the same extent.
 
I might have misinterpreted the question even after they clarified without a screen shot. When they said “tone vs region” I thought they were talking about the tone curve vs parametric Region. If the below “tone vs region” comparison is actually what they are after, then Johan Elzenga’s answer is correct: The Tone options in the Basic panel are advanced algorithms that account for and adjust neighboring pixels to improve results (such as tone mapping and detail recovery for highlights and shadows), and in comparison, the Region options in the Tone Curve are a simple and traditional up or down shift of all pixels uniformly at each tone level.

Victoria’s Lightroom Classic Missing FAQ does describe each option group differently, in chapters 12 and 14.

Lightroom-Classic-Basic-vs-Tone-panel.jpg
 
Yes Conrad, your screen shot is what I was asking about. After reading both your response and Johan's, I still don't know how I would choose one over the other. Maybe I just need to play around with it on different pictures and compare.
 
Yes Conrad, your screen shot is what I was asking about. After reading both your response and Johan's, I still don't know how I would choose one over the other. Maybe I just need to play around with it on different pictures and compare.
That is indeed the best way to learn what you like best, because that's something nobody can tell you.
 
Yes Conrad, your screen shot is what I was asking about. After reading both your response and Johan's, I still don't know how I would choose one over the other. Maybe I just need to play around with it on different pictures and compare.
There are reasons you might or might not discover just by playing around, but you might understand them sooner if you play around with specific concepts in mind, like the ones below. (And by the way, some of the following explanations are in Victoria’s Missing FAQ book.)

The Tone section of the Basic panel is better for:
  • Making an adjustment across a broad range of tones
  • Recovering/preserving highlight or shadow details that cannot be achieved with the Tone Curve
  • Making more extreme highlight or shadow adjustments that would compromise the other end of the tonal scale if done with the Tone Curve (without a mask)
  • Tone mapping, including for HDR images
The Tone Curve is better for:
  • Making a contrast adjustment across a narrow range of tones, such as fine-tuning after applying Basic panel adjustments
  • Making separate adjustments to the red, green, and blue channels
It might also help to understand the history. The Tone Curve came first (in Photoshop). The Basic panel Tone options came later (in Adobe Camera Raw and Lightroom), to overcome the limitations of the Tone Curve, so today the Basic panel is on top because it’s usually better to use that first. For images where the Basic panel is enough (which happens a lot), you might not have to touch the Tone Curve at all.
 
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