The first really important thing to the tone curve, when it still is a straight line from [x,y] = [0,0] (bottom left) to [1,1] (or [100,100] (top right) is that it defines the absolute black point and white point relative to your raw shot's bits. When you shoot at 14 bits depth, the assumption is that digital zero in your image (00,000,000,000,000 on the X-axis) is decimal 0 is to be rendered as black (0 on the Y axis). At the other end of the straight line called curve we are at the digital maximum value (11,111,111,111,111 on the X axis) that is 16,384 decimal and the corresponding value at the top of the Y axis means that it must correspond to depiction as pure white. (I'll ignore the "colour" raw file being monochrome at the data element level to keep this simple.) In the white selector bubble position, you see the back and white point ends of the "curve" as tiny bubbles. These can be dragged elsewhere. If you shift the black point up to the top of the Y axis and the white point to the bottom of the Y axis, then you are inverting the image (turning negative to positive or positie to negative). If you underexposed, say 1 EV, then you have a stretch of X axis that has nothing in the histogram. Slide-shift the white point horizontally left to where you do have histogram values and the new, LrC's, white point is at a lower X value. This causes LrC to remap gradation from raw to depicted values and it opens up the image that becomes a bit more vivid. You cannot open up lost shadow detail this way, but shadow detail can become a bit more apparent. If you reproduced a film negative, you may notice that its total contrast has empty space left and right in the histogram, so you just shift the black and white points to where information starts. From compressed gradation the image is opened up. Shifting the white point a bit down, and/or the black point a bit up, can be a way to adjust your on display rendering of your image to a medium (e.g. print) that can not attain the pure black or pure white levels that you would dream of. E.g. when your paper is not extremely white or your printer's "black" ink is not really black. NOTE - Lightroom Classic (LrC) and Photoshop (Ps) do not process raw images. When you open a raw image in LrC or Ps, Adobe Camera Raw (ACR) is opened as a plug -in. LrC hides this in the UI, Ps makes it very visible. You can run ACR stand-alone by having Adobe Bridge (AB) installed, in AB selecting a raw image and then "open with..." ACR offered as "open" option in Bridge. Your edits will be saved with your image in an ACR-specific sidecar file. NOTE - ACR processes your raw image into a ProPhoto colour space and in the case of LrC hands the result over as such. To display on your monitor LrC then compresses bit depth. When you hand a raw image over as smart object into Ps, it's no longer raw, but RGB and may still be in LrC's internal ProPhoto colour space. Depending on Ps's settings you end up with 8-bits-per-channel (bpc - 24 RGB bits total per pixel). But Ps can be set to 16 or 32 bpc - you can see the difference on a good 8bpc monitor
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This is excellent and I appreciate how current it is!
Glad you enjoyed it Kevin!
The first really important thing to the tone curve, when it still is a straight line from [x,y] = [0,0] (bottom left) to [1,1] (or [100,100] (top right) is that it defines the absolute black point and white point relative to your raw shot's bits.
When you shoot at 14 bits depth, the assumption is that digital zero in your image (00,000,000,000,000 on the X-axis) is decimal 0 is to be rendered as black (0 on the Y axis). At the other end of the straight line called curve we are at the digital maximum value (11,111,111,111,111 on the X axis) that is 16,384 decimal and the corresponding value at the top of the Y axis means that it must correspond to depiction as pure white.
(I'll ignore the "colour" raw file being monochrome at the data element level to keep this simple.)
In the white selector bubble position, you see the back and white point ends of the "curve" as tiny bubbles. These can be dragged elsewhere.
If you shift the black point up to the top of the Y axis and the white point to the bottom of the Y axis, then you are inverting the image (turning negative to positive or positie to negative).
If you underexposed, say 1 EV, then you have a stretch of X axis that has nothing in the histogram. Slide-shift the white point horizontally left to where you do have histogram values and the new, LrC's, white point is at a lower X value. This causes LrC to remap gradation from raw to depicted values and it opens up the image that becomes a bit more vivid. You cannot open up lost shadow detail this way, but shadow detail can become a bit more apparent. If you reproduced a film negative, you may notice that its total contrast has empty space left and right in the histogram, so you just shift the black and white points to where information starts. From compressed gradation the image is opened up.
Shifting the white point a bit down, and/or the black point a bit up, can be a way to adjust your on display rendering of your image to a medium (e.g. print) that can not attain the pure black or pure white levels that you would dream of. E.g. when your paper is not extremely white or your printer's "black" ink is not really black.
NOTE - Lightroom Classic (LrC) and Photoshop (Ps) do not process raw images. When you open a raw image in LrC or Ps, Adobe Camera Raw (ACR) is opened as a plug -in. LrC hides this in the UI, Ps makes it very visible.
You can run ACR stand-alone by having Adobe Bridge (AB) installed, in AB selecting a raw image and then "open with..." ACR offered as "open" option in Bridge. Your edits will be saved with your image in an ACR-specific sidecar file.
NOTE - ACR processes your raw image into a ProPhoto colour space and in the case of LrC hands the result over as such. To display on your monitor LrC then compresses bit depth. When you hand a raw image over as smart object into Ps, it's no longer raw, but RGB and may still be in LrC's internal ProPhoto colour space. Depending on Ps's settings you end up with 8-bits-per-channel (bpc - 24 RGB bits total per pixel).
But Ps can be set to 16 or 32 bpc - you can see the difference on a good 8bpc monitor
Very clear explanation. Thank you very much)
You’re welcome
Greetings from Thailand. Great video explaining this subject.
Glad it was helpful!
Do you know why I do not see the independent control of Highlights, Lights, Darks, & Shadows using the Region sliders? I only see the curve graph :(
I'm assuming you have the Parametric Curve selected? If not, it's the first icon next to the grey circle.
I wasn't using Lightroom Classic ;) Found it now haha. @@ParkerPhotographic