Hey everyone – RC here. We are all so excited that you guys are digging the direction of where we are going with Lightroom Killer Tips. We also wanted to make sure that you guys know that we want this to be a resource for -you-. If we can help in any way, please make sure you let us know. Send us a tweet, comment on a page. Every comment gets read here, and we can try to get to them in posts as we go along.
To that, I wanted to answer a quick question on Highlight warning. Gwen asks:
“I know that in my camera I see blinking red when I shoot something that is overexposed. What is this, and how can I take care of it in Lightroom”
This is actually a pretty simple fix. When you are shooting images in your camera and there is a section that is overexposed, your camera’s screen will give you a warning that tells you that the area is overexposed. This is known as a Higlight Warning. On most cameras, the area will “blink” on the screen.
Now, when you bring this into Lightroom, you will not see a blinking screen in front of you. You may still have that problem- but its not that immediately apparent.
Shadow Warning
At the top of the Histogram panel you will see two arrows to the right and left of the Histogram Bar. These are your warning icons. The one on the right lets you know when you are clipping (sometimes called crushing, or blocking) the shadows in the image. This means that if you were to print this, there would be no detail in this area. Clicking on that triangle on the right will turn the warning ‘on’ and you will see some areas with an overlay of blue.
An easy way to fix it? Hover over that area in the histogram and you’ll see a set of arrows appear. Click and drag to the right and those Shadows should fix themselves. Note: you almost never see the shadow blocking in camera, so you might want to watch out for that.
Highlight Warning
Now on the opposite side of the fence you have a highlight warning. Clicking on this arrow to the right of the histogram at top will show you the areas that are overexposed in the image – in a red overlay. This means that these areas have no data in them whatsoever. If you were to print this, no ink would hit this part of the paper. That is generally not a good thing (there are some exceptions.. but rare).
How can we fix that? Hover over the right side of the histogram and you’ll see arrows appear there. Click and drag to the left and those areas will start to improve themselves.
What About The Sliders?
Now, when you do this in the top part of the histogram, it really is no different than manipulating the Highlights and Shadows slider in the Basic panel below. In fact, you can achieve the same effect by manipulating the tone curve as well. It’s different points of entry to do the same thing Which one you use is entirely up to you.
Hope that answers your question. Remember – if we can help answer something for you in Lightroom just let us know. Have a great day everyone!
Nice Blog…Its very interesting…Thank you for sharing…
good article
Thanks for the tip, I feel that this will be a real image saver for me. Thanks again
Thank you!
“…no different than manipulating the Highlights and Shadows slider in the Basic panel below”
Depending on how far you are toward the right or left edge, it can also signify that you’re changing the Black and White sliders. The Histogram has several vertical sections, if you’re on the inner ones it’s the Highlights and Shadows being affected.
I like your blog. It has useful information, which I am sure is the motivation for presenting it – to help the photography community. What I find very unhelpful, however, is the often cryptic language that I find confusing. Colloquialisms may engender warm and ‘fuzzy’ feelings amongst friends, but when used in an educational environment (which I assume, however presumptuously, this blog is intended to be) can only serve to obfuscate and confuse one who is not conversant with the idiosynchracies of your culture.
You dig?
I feel what you putting down. We’ll try not to beat ppl over the head with it and make people run at us with the pitchforks.
Holla!
RC
You wrote that dragging in the top part of the histogram is no different from manipulating the Highlights and Shadows sliders. Actually, dragging in the top part of the histogram is equivalent to adjusting the Whites slider (you can even see that Whites is displayed below the histogram in your screenshot). Dragging a little lower down in the histogram is equivalent to adjusting the Highlights slider, the middle is Exposure, the lower middle is Shadows, and the bottom is Blacks.
I’ve learned a lot from some of the recent posts, never knew about the ability to adjust the strength of an effect using the little down arrow, thanks.
Paul,
Try this: To update a photo to PV2012, do any of the following in the Develop module:
Click the Update To Current Process 2012 button in the lower-right corner of the histogram (Ctrl/Cmd + 0).
Click the Update To Current Process 2012 button in the lower-right corner of the photo.
Choose Settings > Process > 2012 (Current).
In the Camera Calibration panel, choose Process > 2012 (Current).
If the Update Process Version dialog box appears, select any of the following
Review Changes Via Before/After
Opens the updated photo in a Before/After view so you can inspect the changes. See View Before and After photos.
Update
Updates the one selected photo.
Update All Selected Photos
Updates all photos currently selected in the Filmstrip, not just the active photo.
Update All Filmstrip Photos
Updates all photos in the Filmstrip, not just the one that is selected.
Note:
Updating to Process Version 2012 may incur significant visual changes to your photos. It’s a good idea to update images one at a time until you are familiar with the new processing technology.
You may update the process version image-by-image or synchronize the version of multiple images all at once (patch-process) and later reverse the change in any single image.
https://helpx.adobe.com/lightroom/help/develop-module-options.html
http://www.slrlounge.com/school/how-to-use-the-sync-and-auto-sync-functions-to-batch-process-images-in-lightroom-4/
Because LR is non-destructive, you can modify any change any time to any image you like.
I was following Matt’s advice & reprocessing some of my old files… several just didn’t behave properly doing this… then I realised that I needed to upgrade to the 2012 process (in Settings); after that it was wonderful, I love the shadows and highlights recovery in today’s LR.
RC – please could you tell us how to upgrade large numbers of photos to the current process setting? It is easy to do one, but not a whole catalogue.
To update a photo to PV2012, do any of the following in the Develop module:
Click the Update To Current Process 2012 button in the lower-right corner of the histogram (Ctrl/Cmd + 0).
Click the Update To Current Process 2012 button in the lower-right corner of the photo.
Choose Settings > Process > 2012 (Current).
In the Camera Calibration panel, choose Process > 2012 (Current).
If the Update Process Version dialog box appears, select any of the following
Review Changes Via Before/After
Opens the updated photo in a Before/After view so you can inspect the changes. See View Before and After photos.
Update
Updates the one selected photo.
Update All Selected Photos
Updates all photos currently selected in the Filmstrip, not just the active photo.
Update All Filmstrip Photos
Updates all photos in the Filmstrip, not just the one that is selected.
Note:
Updating to Process Version 2012 may incur significant visual changes to your photos. It’s a good idea to update images one at a time until you are familiar with the new processing technology.
I’d be interested in seeing this as well. I haven’t been able to figure it out either.
RC: are we going to read here the basics of LR? LR for beginners?
May I suggest reading Adobe’s tutorials: https://helpx.adobe.com/lightroom/tutorials.html
Bruno:
I think you’ll read here a bunch of different Lightroom tips and tricks – from beginning to expert. I think it would shock you to know how many people are just getting started in Lightroom.
These people want answers – just as you want tricks and tips.
Hope that helps!
RC
Update one image to the current process version, go to the Library module and add to your selected image those images you would like to update, then hit the “Sync Settings” button in the right bottom corner, check the “Process version” checkbox and hit the button “Synchronize”. Done deal.
A new question/comment: I often end up doing multiple local adjustments, e.g. several individual brushes, each one often with several settings modified (e.g. temp, exposure, shadows etc.). When I have been working for a while, it would be very helpful to be able to check the effect each individual adjustment brush separately, rather than turning all adjustment brushes on/off at the same time. Is there a way to do that?
Why don’t you use “History” in the Develop module (on the left side of the screen). It allows you to review every single step.
Alternatively you could create a snapshot of modifications you are interested in – and name every snapshot accordingly.
An excellent resource for all things Adobe are Julieanne Kost’s videos: http://www.jkost.com/lightroom.html.
What about SHIFT + DOUBLE CLICK on Black and White Slider? This trick saves me a lot of time!!!
Hi, you described the shadow warning triangle as being to the right of the histogram… I’m not at my Mac to check but I’m pretty sure its on the left. Great posts… Keep ’em coming.
Hi RC, great post – I think a word of caution would be appropriate here. If the highlights are blown out to a degree, where no detail is recorded on the sensor, details cannot be recovered by using the highlights or whites sliders.
So, if you see most of the screen on the back of the camera blinking with highlight warning, it may be time to decrease the exposure.
However, I do find that my Canon camera will give highlight warnings approximately one stop before Lightroom does. So some degree of in-camera highlight warning is OK.
Hi Kristian — the reason you’re seeing a 1-stop difference in between the camera highlight warning and what you’re seeing in Lightroom is that your camera is showing you the highlight warning for the JPEG preview. When you bring your image into Lightroom, you now see the actual RAW file and it has a greater tonal range than JPEG so what showed as clipping in camera really isn’t clipping the RAW file. Hope that helps. 🙂
Scott/RC – Never knew this. Thank you!
Is this the case with (in my case) all current Canon bodies? I use 5D3 and 7D.
I’m surprised no manufacturer allows those shooting raw to have highlight clipping shown from the raw perspective. I also don’t understand why Nikon (at least, haven’t read other manuals) never indicates which features do not apply to raw.
Hi Scott,
Thanks for getting back to me. You are absolutely right. My point was just to mention that if your camera shows clipping, then you are at least close to clipping the raw file as well, so one should be a little careful, when clipping is seen.
I do find it slightly annoying that the jpg clips so much sooner – In studio shoots, where I want to blow out the background, it can be annoying to raise the whites slider in every single image just because the background was only blown out in the jpg preview (another great reason to shoot tehtered though)
Looks like an essential book.