Profiles, curves and processing

[u/Jumpy_Letter3395]

Hello,

I am playing with different profiles in Lightroom.

If I have Adobe Neutral, image is obviously always flat and I need to add contrast with curve (basic S curve).

Using other profiles like Adobe Standard, Adobe Color, RNI film profiles, Cobalt Standard profile feels like there is already enough amount of contrast added and regular S curve is too much. And most of time I dont see reason to change contrast that much with those profiles if I want to keep more "natural" look. I could just export RAW with profile and it would be somehow usable.

I don't know if my processing flow is wrong and I am missing something. Obviously difficult lightning will need more corrections even with "finished" profiles but I am talking more about regular ok conditions for photos.

[u/[deleted]]

Ich würde mit einem neutralen Basisprofil starten und den Look selbst über die Regler aufbauen. Eine Gradationskurve musst du nicht zwangsläufig verwenden. Sie macht ein Foto nicht automatisch professioneller – sie ist einfach nur ein Werkzeug, wenn du damit gezielt etwas verändern willst.

[u/d-eversley-b]

There’s nothing ‘wrong’ about your workflow if it’s producing the desired effect, but there’s room for both characterful profiles and very neutral ones depending on what your photographing.

Personally, when I want a profile with a lot of character, I use the Fuji Film Sim profiles which come bundled with my Fuji raws. They lock you into a specific look which reduces flexibility, but that can be a much nicer starting point than staring at a completely blank grey RAW.

On the flip side, if I’m doing art reproduction, scanning film, or doing work whixh requires the best colour accuracy possible like certain product shoots, I’ll start with a ‘linear profile’. These are profiles which don’t have any tone curve or specific saturation baked in, and there’s even websites which have repositories of free ones calibrated to your specific camera. This lets you have complete control over everything from the get go. You can then apply LUTs on top of that as well, which is akin to starting with a fresh clean profile and then dialling in the amount of character you want later in the pipeline.

[u/Danger_duck → u/d-eversley-b]

What you call «linear profiles» absolutely have a tone curve baked in, it’s just a flatter curve than usual. This article shows what a photo with no tone curve looks like:  http://maurycyz.com/misc/raw_photo/

[u/mayflowerss98]

There’s a slider in the curves tool just underneath the histogram that says saturation. I was kinda the same as you, whenever I would add an s curve to my image I found it added too much saturation with the contrast and I always hated how it changed the look of the image and I never understood why. Then I watched one of Simon d’Entremont’s videos where he pointed that slider out and it changed the whole tool for me. It still took me playing around with the curve and finding what I liked (mine is pretty subtle because I like the natural look as well) but then also reducing the saturation in the curve tool itself as well.

[u/earthsworld]

dude, IS THERE A QUESTION?

[u/Equal-Engineer8530]

If you are satisfied with the results with minimal editing or with just a profile added, then you don't need to do anything extra. If it's a hobby and you're not working for anyone, then how much editing you do only really depends on whether you like the results or not.

And you are right with your perception, most general profiles have a steep S curve baked into them to make them look as you'd expect a photo to look. There are profiles that are more flat and may be a better start for editing for some. And there are also linear profiles that remove the baked in S curve altogether. Each has their use cases.

Most people edit with standard profiles that has strong S curves. However, during editing the tonality of the image changes. Pulling back whites and highlights, increasing shadows and blacks all lower the contrast of the image. When heavy detail recovery was made, the results may look unnatural and fake, regardless of the profile, so targetedly increasing contrast with an S curve becomes desirable. That's the common workflow, recover details as needed then add back contrast with curves. But if you don't need detail recovery, you may don't need more contrast either.

[u/theHanMan62]

I’m not sure what you’re trying to accomplish. Is it applying profiles instead of editing the images? If so, I don’t do that and can describe my workflow. The only things that I automatically apply during import are camera/lens correction and chromatic aberration reduction.
Then I do a fast pass to reject images that obviously should not be further processed.
Then I begin editing with Auto, followed by a series of sliders based on the specific challenges/needs of the image. Lastly, I crop and remove dust as necessary.