Make images pop

I usually work with lighten and deepen because they do a nice job of bringing richness to the image. Usually vibrancy rather than saturation. Sometimes a light vignette. The brightness slider can provide unexpected improvements because it’s not a conventional brightness algorithm (it’s a gamma function). Usually a little definition or sharpen. I also use the auto enhance a lot.

I look forward to hearing what others do too!

I have set a preset to automatically apply. It’s a starting point which suits most of my pics.
It has highlights down to 0.97, shadows up to 0.8, recovery to 0.04.
Definition is at 0.20, deepen at 0.07, lighten at 0.15
Contrast is at 1.1, saturation 0.94, vibrancy 0.11
Sharpen at 0.2
I created a LUT to bring down the saturations of greens and their brightness. I frequently use this whenever there is a lot of grass in a pic.
I add a gentle curve modification – sometimes on luminosity. I bring up the red curve a smidgen for portraits.

Nik, would it be possible to explain more precisely what the difference is between deepen and shadow please? ie, does one negate the other, or do they act on different parts of the curve. And also how they interact with the black point? thank you!

Just following on from your discussion about editing.

I’ve only just started using Raw Power in the last couple of months, since getting my iPad Pro, and deciding to switch to it as my primary computer device. I have owned RP for some time on the iMac, but didn’t find many occasions to use it. So, I have been experimenting a bit with it now, and the integration with Photos has meant I can now consider ditching Lightroom.

After some trying out of stuff, I have come to this as a current solution.

On my Nikon images (D5100 and now D5300), I’m liking the look that the Provia LUT gives. So, as you have done, I have made a preliminary preset as a starting point, which adds a little Raw sharpening for my budget ‘kit’ lenses. I haven’t worked back to older cameras as yet (I have Olympus, Fuji and Panasonic collected over the last few years). The Astia LUT works well on family wedding pictures.

I then apply Auto Enhance, and then work down and tweak as necessary. I prefer the look that the ‘Levels’ option gives, rather than Curves, which I found can sometimes result in a colour balance I don’t like, the Levels option seems to give more constantly neutral results.

I’m now able to edit images as fast as I did in Lightroom, with equally good, or better, results.

The Sharpen module is very deceiving too, for such a simple adjustment, it works brilliantly well for most images, and seems quite forgiving in how much you can apply.

The only thing I’d like to be able to do in a preset is to turn on the Raw module, without applying fixed settings, but allow it to apply any camera default settings it finds – such as the Luma and Chroma noise settings, which can change dependent on ISO).

Cheers.

I’ll have a look in the documentation, but I can’t see anything that allows for any of that to happen? (IPadOS 14). There’s only the options for a New Preset, which only offers a name for it, or Edit, which only allows re-ordering or deleting. A far as I can see here anyway.

Cheers.

No, nothing there at all Erik, there is New, then a naming dialogue with ok and cancel, then that’s it, it’s created. In Edit, I only see a delete symbol or a move symbol. Nothing else.

To confirm, iPadOS 14, not desktop.

Looking at the documentation, it is there in the desktop version, but not mentioned for the iOS version.

For sure, camera default presets would be useful.

Cheers.

Andy

No worries, at least it’s not as badly iOS limited compared to the Adobe options 😉 (which is one reason why I’ve switched).

You’re a bit of a star Nik :-).

I appreciate that iOS will be more restricted than the desktop OS, so I’m never expecting everything to be the same, I just mention things in case they can be achieved.

Cheers.