Upon import, LR changes basic settings from zero

[essjay6]

two & one-half years, no problems with LR . . .

this issue arose during the most recent importing of images/files:

basic parameters in the develop module (such as exposure, contrast, highlights) were not imported with "zero" values.

E.g. whites - normally imported as a zero - might have a +27 value.

Another peculiarity: if highlights are read in at -28, shadows are read in at +28; or -13 & +13 etc. etc.

specifics:

Canon 5Dmark3

LR 5.7.1 running on OS-X platform

I've made no changes to settings on either the camera or in LR

I've tried removing references within LR to the images & reimporting - no joy.

What's going on?

Suggested remedy?

Thanx in advance,

Steve

[johnrellis]

In the Import window, make sure Apply During Import > Develop Settings is set to None:

If that doesn't help, select one of the problem photos, go to Develop, and do the menu command Develop > Set Default Settings and click Restore Adobe Default Settings. 

[elie_dinur]

The tone values (Basic panel) you report sound like Auto Tones are being applied during import. There used to be a check box in Preferences to enable this, but Adobe removed it at some point. I don't remember whether it was still there in 5.7.1 (maybe somebody else knows), but it would be worthwhile to take a look at Preferences.

[richardplondon]

The only place I can find in current software to make Auto (tone) happen as a default operation, rather than just applying the results from a particular usage of the Auto Tone button, is in the options dialog for a Develop preset.

An image cannot have "Auto" assigned as an ongoing property. It can only have an Auto tone operation happen to it, which then moves its tone sliders to (whatever) values. Auto Tone is a "verb" here. What an image will remember, and what you can then save as processing defaults, are just "nouns" - such as a particular setting for Contrast, or Shadows, etc..

[This is by contrast with White Balance, where a setting of "Auto" or of "As Shot" CAN be assigned to an image as a "noun", and thus can be saved into processing defaults. It's the same selection, even if it manifests itself differently in the cases of different images.]

If a given Develop preset is being applied during import, you can 'Update with Current Settings' - and view whether Auto tone is currently checked there, or not.

Caution: in updating such options for a preset, one will want to have first applied the preset to a sample image. Then update it working from that same image, so as to re-record the other image settings it applies, set to the same values as they were before.

A perhaps easier alternative is to manually zap [Auto tone] out of the preset file itself, assuming you don't want to just stop applying that preset altogether. You can right-click on a given preset, choose "Show in Explorer / Finder", and open that in a text editor (on Windows, e.g. Notepad).

Within a preset which applies Auto tone (current LR) the following statements are relevant (there will be other stuff in there too):

AutoBrightness = false,

AutoContrast = false,

AutoExposure = false,

AutoShadows = false,

AutoTone = true,

AFAICT either changing "true" to "false" or else simply removing all of these lines, and then resaving the preset, should do it. It may be necessary to close and restart LR, before such external changes within the User presets folder take effect.

RP

[Jim Wilde]

Yes, elie_di, the 5.7.1 preferences still retained the option to automatically apply "Auto Tone" on import, and I agree that it sounds as though this is what's happening (though of course it could have been applied by using the General Preset "Auto Tone", rather than via the preferences setting).