After quite a few hours play and editing an actual shoot with PV2012 I like it and prefer it to PV2010. I miss the fill light, but I don't miss the artificats created by the fill light, particularly the haloing. Also having many more parameters on the brush and grad filters is excellent!!

like: WHITE slider makes it easier to push the max pixel luminance up to 255

don't like WHITE slider does not do as good a job as RECOVERY slider at pulling overexposed pixels down below 255

don't like absence of BRIGHTNESS slider which I found a useful compliment to EXPOSURE

don't like: SHADOWS (with or without BLACKS) as a replacement for FILL (I don't have a problem with the haloing effect of FILL that other have)

GeofferyH:  Does your wedge image extend beyond L=255 to test the effectiveness of blown pixel recovery?  If so, could you tell us how to make or get it?

I was used to PV2010, Recovery, etc. I have been processing images for a week now to see if I can make the leap to PV2012, and am actually finding it easier and quicker to get through a batch. Lack of halo's is also a major plus. Staying with PV2012, thanks

It's taking me time to learn, but I reckon I'm getting better results with PV2012 than I could with PV2010. 

One thing I've found: the sliders don't do exactly what Adobe say; it's more complicated than that. 

I mean: the implication is that each slider operates mainly in a narrow band.  If you move (not hold) the mouse over the histogram and move left to right, it highlights part of the histogram showing which slider affects which part.  But it's not as simple as that.

For example,

• Highlights affects mainly section from around 65% to 90%.  Increasing Highlights moves this part of the histogram right, compresssing the bright whites slightly while preserving the top from clipping as far as possible. 
• Whites slider is rather different.  Increasing the whites slider moves the whole histogram right, mostly at the top, and least at the bottom. 

A good way of seeing what each slider does: start with an image in PV2012 with a good range of tones (something in the histogram from bottom to top).  Click on the number to the right of the slider (so the number is highlighted), and press and hold down the up or down cursor (arrow) key and watch the histogram.  This will gradually increase or decrease the slider, and you can see the effect. 

See also the very comprehensive posts by Rob Cole at http://forums.adobe.com/thread/968940?tstart=0 and http://forums.adobe.com/thread/973706?tstart=0

PV2012 - like looking outside through a freshly washed window.

Marco N. wrote:

 

Even if it is not serius make a full review on one image, I have tried some sliders and here you can find my experience: www.gialandra.it Google Translator should make a reasonable good job in translating

 

You can try yourself and compare the opinion.

 

Ciao

Marco

Wow, Marco. A link to the front page of a blog; no link to actual images edited in LR, no content that I can see, maybe I need to click around on 20 more links to find what you are talking about. Please don't do that. We don't like it. Give us the link to exactly what you are talking about.

Much better!

Ciao!

imagex ideas wrote:

 

like: WHITE slider makes it easier to push the max pixel luminance up to 255

+whites is awesome, regardless of whether the max pixel level is 255 on the nose, way below 255, or graceful clipping is being employed... I even use it sometimes for it's effect (in conjunction with compensatory adjustment of the other sliders) on shadows and midtones, optionally undoing its stratifying effect on the highlights using the tone curve - for advanced users only .

imagex ideas wrote:

 

don't like WHITE slider does not do as good a job as RECOVERY slider at pulling overexposed pixels down below 255

It's a design feature that PV2012 tries to maximize highlight shiny-ness and detail. I think it's a good thing for most photos, but I too find sometimes I want to bring the highest tones down without necessarily dropping and/or stratifying highlights. Sometimes one can just not do it with the basic sliders (and still meet all other toning goals at the same time). Always one can do it using the tone/point curve.

imagex ideas wrote:

 

don't like absence of BRIGHTNESS slider which I found a useful compliment to EXPOSURE

+exposure -highlights is the PV2012 basic slider "equivalent". Granted it's not as smooth as brightness slider, but (unlike Lr3 brightness slider) it does maintain midtone and highlight contrast when brightening (avoiding that "washed out" look that often accompanied brightness in Lr3). I mostly use the parametric tone curve for tweaks, which frees the point curve up for a single point equivalent to Lr3 brightness slider, which I used to use a lot in the early days, now - almost never.

imagex ideas wrote:

 

don't like: SHADOWS (with or without BLACKS) as a replacement for FILL (I don't have a problem with the haloing effect of FILL that other have)

Do you allow yourself to freely adjust blacks from -100 to +100 (and shadows from one end of the scale to the other as well, regardless of how non-intuitive it may seem) and then use the tone curve to primp? That's the key, along with exposure which is the most critical of all adjustments in PV2012.

Note: I acknowlege that it is impossible to achieve the exact same effect of Lr3 fill sometimes, but I think most people think "I like deep dark crushed blacks so I shall shy away from +blacks...", and "I need my shadows well filled so I'll use +shadows". That may or may not be the best strategy in PV2012 for a particular photo. You may need to adjust fill shape and desired level of relative illumination and detail using blacks and shadow sliders as a team, then finalize bottom end using tone curve.

e.g. on some (rare) photos great fill settings may be

blacks +100

shadows -100

And still have well lit shadows and crushed blacks.

PV2012 pretty much takes care of itself when it comes to "extreme" settings, so you don't have to baby it like you did Lr3. (there are still some artifacts sometimes from extreme settings, but far less than in Lr3).

Summary:

========

In the early days, I missed both brightness and fill sliders. Now, I still miss the convenience of the brightness slider and the effect of the fill-light slider sometimes, but far less often...

I'm not trying to change how you feel about PV2012, just a reminder that it is tricky, and you've got to learn the tricks before you can get the results you want, in some cases.

And again for emphasis: Tone/point curve should not be used as a substitute for proper toning using the basic sliders, but it may be absolutely essential for optimized (global) toning in conjunction with the basics in PV2012.

I'm just sharing what works for me - YMMV.

Rob

Hi imagex-ideas,

imagex ideas wrote:

 

Rob - I appreciate your detailed and thoughtful response to my comments on PV2012.

You're welcome.

imagex ideas wrote:

 

...I'm not optimistic that I can learn to do these adjustments, which I do very frequently, as EASILY as I now do them in LR3. 

No argument. If Lr3 was a two-headed snake, then Lr4 is hydra.

imagex ideas wrote:

 

The issue of recovery of clipped or overexposed pixels is a different one.  Much of my photography involves scenes in which the inherent luminance variation exceeds the 8-bit range of photo presentation.  I don't like multi-shot HDR techniques, so I shoot RAW and most often try to expose for the detail I want in the dark parts of the image.  I know this is contrary to the expose-for-the-right mantra which is good advice for lower dynamic range shots.  But I have come to rely on recording areas that are soft-clipped (beyond 255 luminance in the display image) but not hard-clipped (fully saturated pixels in the sensor chip), then using the LR3 Recovery slider (sometimes followed by upper end tone curve adjustments) to create the look I want in the final image.

 

In LR4 it seems the default or starting processing pushes the soft-clipped pixels down into the display range before I can even start to work.  The White slider affects the upper end of the display range, but seems to do very little to pixels still soft-clipped.  If I develop confidence that the default processing has done for me what I now do with the Recovery slider (namely bring the soft-clipped pixels into the display range and leave the hard-clipped pixels at 255), then all will be well.  If not, I'll stick with PV2010 for awhile.

The way the whites slider handles clipping is very nice. I don't understand the technical details like some others do, but it certainly gives more flexibility than you have in Lr3, dunno about how well it satisfies your specific criteria...

As you've noticed, highlights and whites sliders do not necessarily do what you might think. -whites sometimes leaves whites high, whereas -highights pulls them down. PV2012 is kinda fancy, and has your back - but tricky... In general, highlight handling in Lr4 is awesome (shadow control is more limited).

Cheers,

Rob