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Chapter 15: Simplify your editing with curves in Lightroom for iPad.
The Leica Q2 Monochrom journal.
If you’ve tried editing color images with curves in the past—you may have given up. But it turns out editing true monochrome images in curves is much simpler than editing color. Instead of those five confusing curves, you’re usually only dealing with one: the Point curve. This article will show you how simple it it to control what you’re currently using the Exposure, Contrast, Brightness, Highlights, Shadows, Whites and Blacks sliders for in Lightroom. I’ve decide not to show images and the effects the Curves have. I think it will make more sense to focus on the grid and curves themselves.
Understanding the graph.
If you’re editing a true monochrome image, Lightroom on iPad’s Point curve (white circle) is on a simple graph that starts low on the left (representing the shadows) and rises to high on the right (representing highlights). The dots at the end of the line represent pure black on the left and pure white on the right. The x axis (left-right) represents the volume of tones and the y axis (up-down) represents lightness at the top and darkness at the bottom. By bending the curve you smoothly bend the tones of the image. It’s actually a lot more convenient than sliders in the Light section in Lightroom and a lot more powerful. Once you’ve tapped the line to lay down a dot, you can move it anywhere. Double tap a dot to remove it.
The one warning.
While you’re free to do whatever you want with the dots on the curve, there is one “rule” for natural looking images: No matter how many dots you use, each dot should be higher than the dot to its left. Don’t let your dots cause the curve to dip downward. If any dot is lower than the one to its left, it creates an effect called solarization, introducing a partial negative to the image. While a cool effect used by Man Ray, it’s not useful if you want a natural look.
Two-point editing for key.
When the Curves grid opens there’s a dot at either end of the diagonal line. The left dot is anchored to black and the right dot is anchored to white. Moving the dot on the left up a little and the dot on the right down a little will free the curve from the anchors of pure black and pure white. You likely won’t see a difference in the image, but will notice that the histogram will be more smooth, as will overall tone manipulation.
These two dots are useful for controlling the key, or overall brightness or darkness of an image. High-key images emphasize the light tones and low-key images emphasize the dark tones. This is a simple way to make your monochrome images darker or lighter in overall mood. By nudging the dot on the left straight upwards, you start turning black and the darkest tones lighter and brighten shadows. Likewise dragging the dot on the right down creates a moody, low-key image by turning white and the lightest tones gray.
Dragging the right dot down can be useful when restoring highlights by turning white into light gray.
Dragging either dot left or right will start turning the shadows black or the highlights white. In a monochrome file, this can create a stark, posterization effect of pure blacks and pure white and the image will start to look like a monotone lithograph. A cool effect, but not if you’re looking for realism.
Three-Point editing for exposure.
The curve sits atop a grid that’s four-squares-wide by four-squares-high.
- Tap on the line where the squares meet in the center to add a point.
- Drag up to lighten exposure or down to darken exposure.
- Drag left or right to fine tune the tones.
You’re working the mid grays which is something the sliders don’t give you access to. It’s useful to free the ends of the curve from black and white as noted in Two-Point editing for a smoother tone range.
Four-Point editing for contrast.
- Tap along the line at the intersections as shown above to set a point to control shadows and another to control highlights.
- Move the dots slightly left or right to fine tune.
Photographers commonly create an S-curve to add contrast, pulling the left dot down to darken the shadows and pulling the right dot up to brighten highlights. You’ll notice that this gives you a totally different look than the Shadows, Highlights and Contrast sliders. Caution: A little goes a long way.
Five-Point editing for overall look.
You can use as many dots as you like, but the five-point configuration can accomplish almost any monochrome look. Once you have a grasp on Two, Three and Four-Point Editing, Five-Point Editing will be simple.
- Tap the curve at the intersections of the grids to add three dots.
- Start by moving dots up and down and fine tune by moving them left and right.
When moving the dots, I think it’s most useful to work from dots and the ends and go towards the middle. This way you get contrast and exposure as you like them first before tinkering with the mid tones.
Using the Color Channels to tint.
Since a monochrome DNG doesn’t capture color, we don’t have the advantage of manipulating the Color Channels to filter as you would by converting a color image to black and white. But we can use these curves to tint our images. The two most common tints are a blue and sepia. Let’s start with the Blue channel since that controls the traditional colors of photographic tinting. (A mild yellow tint will resemble a warm sepia.)
- Tap the Blue circle to open the Blue curve.
- Tap center of the line and drag up to add a blue tint or drag down to add a yellow tint.
- Once you’ve achieved a pleasing the color depth, the image will look lighter. Tap the White circle to return to the Point curve. Pull down on the center of the curve to darken exposure.
It’s easy to go too far with tinting, especially as you move dots left and right: Those lovely monochrome tones can become characterless pure blue or yellow. For a cooler Sepia, instead use the red and green channels and add equal amounts.
My take.
Since we’re editing monochrome, the Point curve was much easier to get a grasp on than I expected. I think it’s much simpler than using multiple sliders and gives you both more power over tones and better control over subtlety.
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Photography Leica Q2 Monochrom