Auto exposure broken after update to the latest version

[vasyap19776906]

Hi,

I updated my lightroom classic today (to version 7.3.1), and autoexposure button seems to be completely broken now! The screenshot below was taken after I pressed the "auto" button above "exposure" slider. It used to produce balanced images before, now it just shifts the historgam deeply to the left, producing a shit picture. Any advice how to fix that?

[JohanElzenga]

Fix it yourself manually. Auto Tone is greatly improved, and works much better for most images. But it isn't magic and will still sometimes give poor results.

[Todd Shaner]

That's not normal or even remotely close. Is this happening with other subject types (people, landscape, architectural)? How about when using Adobe Standard camera profile?

[Jim Wilde]

I had something similar happen last week (coincidentally it was a picture of a flower), where I found a full two-stop exposure difference when using Auto Settings with the camera matching "Camera Natural" profile, compared with using Auto when the default Adobe Color profile was used. I do sometimes see an more under-exposured result when using Auto Settings with some of the camera matching profiles, versus the default. Sometimes I prefer one over the other, but not always the same one....as Johan said, Auto Settings isn't magic, and sometimes it gets things wrong.

[Bob Somrak]

Show us screen clips of your other develop sliders, especially the tone curve.  AUTO does not override any settings except a few in basic. 

[Joe Foe Toe]

Re trshaner - is this happening across the board? Anything different about this image like extreme underexposure to begin with?

[cmgap]

What happens if you reset the photo and try again?

[Jim Wilde]

If it's the same "problem" that I encountered, resetting and repeating the steps in the same order will produce the same result. A "better" result, i.e. not so under-exposed, would probably be obtained by applying the camera-matching profile ​after ​applying Auto Settings.

[cmgap]

Are you willing to share that image via Dropbox? What camera/lens was used for this image?

[Todd Shaner]

This has been reported in the Photoshop Family Forum. I've replied with a link to an image file that clearly demonstrates the issue. The image is a closeup of a yellow flower on a dark background. It appears to be due to an AI algorithm failure of the Tone panel Auto function when using 'Camera Standard' or 'Camera Landscape' profiles. Adobe Standard profile does not exhibit the issue. It's not clear what's triggering the gross under-exposure in specific images since other similar pictures I checked don't exhibit the issue.

Option to revert to older "Auto" | Photoshop Family Customer Community

[ageminmo]

I also have the same problem.I thought it is the combination of my camera body and third party lens but also having the same problem for my 4 other cameras.

[JoeKostoss]

This often happens when the image has relatively large areas of white that is clipped such as can happen while shooting in dappled bright sunlight using a + exposure compensation.  The auto tries to darken the clipped areas using a 1 or 2 stop exposure reduction which darkens the entire image.

[Todd Shaner]

Joe, it's also happening with very normal images that have no highlight clipping. Check out the image file at the link I provided in my reply above. It is actually slightly under-exposed with no bright specular areas.  The image data is shifted left to lower 1/3 of the Histogram. It happens to varying degrees with the 'Camera' named profiles, but not at all with the 'Adobe' named profiles.  Gotta be a bug!

[JP Hess]

Personally, I hope they don't change the Auto adjustment. I have been going through a set of about 1500 images from a trip to Alaska taken about 10 years ago, comparing the new Lightroom with what I had available then. For the vast majority of those images that Auto adjustment has done a remarkable job. Occasionally I find that I have had to undo it and go a different direction, but the Auto adjustment has saved me countless hours of time. But then maybe I'm just not as picky as some of you.

[Todd Shaner]

JimHess  wrote

Personally, I hope they don't change the Auto adjustment.

I agree. What needs to be done is find out why there is a large difference in exposure with certain image files when using the 'Camera' named profiles. Overall I think everyone agrees the rendering when using the 'Adobe' named profiles is much better than the previous 'Auto' results. It shouldn't be too difficult for Adobe to determine what's wrong when using the 'Camera' named profiles and fix it.

I suggest adding further comments to the Photoshop Family report below, which is viewed by Adobe Staff. Thank you.

Option to revert to older "Auto" | Photoshop Family Customer Community

[JoeKostoss]

I did some more testing and agree that Auto works very nicely with the Adobe Profiles but not with the Camera (Nikon) profiles.  Hadn't noticed that before.

[cmgap]

I was able to recreate the issue... When the camera profile is selected (Nikon) the result is not usable... change to Adobe Color and it's better but also not optimal.