Lightroom Integrated: Workflow Phase II - Black and White in Photoshop CS4 and Photoshop Lightroom - page 96

Histogram:
Behind the curve itself, Lightroom shows a large, clear histogram.
Corresponding quadrants at the base of the Curve show which slider controls
which region of the curve. As you mouse over the curve, the histogram
shows which slider controls which region. Say you wanted to only adjust the
deepest, darkest black tones in an image with the Shadow slider. Just pull the
left most tab to the desired location - now Shadow maps only a small subset
of the histogram.

Highlights: This control maps the quadrant from the brightest tones;
adjusting this is a great way to pull down specular highlights in an image.

Lights: These are the areas that detail often hides, and where the bright side
of contrast can often be found.

Darks: Conversely, this is a region where light shadow detail is hiding or
mid-contrast can be improved.

Shadows: This is the darkest portion of the image, and this slider can be used
to have rich blacks or detailed shadows.

Tip:
Did you know that you
can click and drag the
base of the histogram to
change the range of the
four sliders?

This is all i ne and good and, like Camera Raw, it is an enormous step forward
for Curves; Lightroom takes it somewhere completely unique, though. Note the
tiny round button to the left of the Curve; the tool tip reads “Adjust Tone Curve
by dragging in the photo” and that is exactly what this does! With this button
enabled, a user needs only to i nd the region on the image that they want to
adjust, and simply mouse down upon it and drag upwards or downwards. This
is by far the most powerful and intuitive way to make adjustments.

Step 5: Convert to Grayscale: Basic Conversion

Note:
See Chapter 6, “Black and
White & Creative Image
Editing in Lightroom”
for more in-depth
conversion options.

Like Camera Raw, “Grayscale” refers not to an image mode, but to the black
and white conversion feature in Lightroom.

1. Within the HSL/Color/Grayscale palette, simply select “Grayscale”.

By design, this adjustment leverages the same “Auto” setting as Camera
Raw. “Auto-Adjust” maps the color tones in the image to present the user
with a nice, well-contrasted conversion.

2. As with Camera Raw, each individual slider can control a given region of
the monochromatic image. You may have noticed that familiar button
from Curves; yes, you can interact directly with your black and white
adjustment by i rst pressing this button!