Brighter and Darker Tools

[MikeFromMesa]

I was processing some of my desert photos through my workflow tool when I came across one that had some lens flare. Since my workflow tool has no masking and no ability to address isolated highlights I sent the photo to PL with the idea of doing some local darkening.

I selected the Darker Tool, adjusted the brush size and started painting trying to darken the part of the image I was concerned about but, no matter how much I "brushed" the area, nothing darkened. I tried several other settings in the Tool Settings Panel (Midtones and Shadows) as well as adjusting the Intensity setting, but nothing I did seemed to make the slightest difference. I then tried the Brighter Tool, just to see, but that also did nothing.

I then went to the manual but, if there is a tool with a briefer description than for the Brighter and Darker Tools, I have not seen it. All the manual says is "The brighter tool allows lightening up in a very detailed way." which, while I suppose correct, was less than helpful to me.

So the question is - what am I doing wrong with the Darker Tool? Two minutes to continually "brushing" the image should have made some difference, but did not. I tried using the Shift, Control, Option and Command keys along with the mouse button, but nothing worked. Am I doing something wrong? Or is this the wrong tool for me to use for what I want to do?

Thanks.

[photoken]

I don't have an answer as to why the Darken and Lighten tools are not working. Are you working on a RAW image? Are you sure you're applying those tools to a layer that contains image pixels? Do you have an active mask that is protecting the areas from being darkened?

There's another technique that can be used to correct lens flares in certain cases: Because the Darken tool can introduce colour shifts, you can

1. Duplicate your original colour image layer.
2. Convert that duplicated image layer to B&W using all "neutral" settings in the Gray Mixer adjustment.
3. Set the blend mode of that converted layer to "Luminance".
4. Paint with the Darken tool on that B&W layer to remove the flare.

That technique doesn't work on all areas, especially if the lens flare is severe enough to grossly affect the underlying image colour, but I've found it very effective for removing a pale lens flare which covers a person's hair and face.

[Hoogo]

Flares often appear different in the different channels, that's why they are colorful. If the background is more of an unique color, and if a flare in only one color, the channel mixer can help.
So have a look at the different channels. There's a tab at the layer list to switch to channels, have a look at the channels there.

If you're lucky, one of the channels is even perfect!
Then you can make a copy of the layer, use the channel mixer to copy the good channel into the damaged channels, mask the flare roughly and use curves to adjust the color of the recreated channels.

If all channels are broken, you can try to take the best one and subtract the worst to create a good channel.

You can also skip the channel mixer and use curves right from the start to correct the colors in the flare. This will work also fine for backgrounds with more different colors, but you need to be much more careful with masking.

But it all depends on the flares. If you have some rainbow flares, you will need more work than just this.

Maybe you like to show your flare?

[Hoogo]

By the way: No problems with lighten and darken here.
Does it work if you press the button to work on the whole picture?

[MikeFromMesa]

By the way: No problems with lighten and darken here.
Does it work if you press the button to work on the whole picture?

Yes. That changed the functionality, although I have no idea why. Before I pressed that button Brighten and Darken did not work on the image at all. After I pressed it for Darken, that worked on the image. After I pressed it for Brighten, that worked on the image.

I thought that the Whole Picture button meant that any Brightening or Darkening would Brighten or Darken the whole image when painted anywhere on the image, so I had not tried it. Live and learn ...

Thank you. Slowly learning the software and how to use it, thanks to those on this forum.

[Hoogo]

Yes. That changed the functionality, although I have no idea why. Before I pressed that button Brighten and Darken did not work on the image at all. After I pressed it for Darken, that worked on the image. After I pressed it for Brighten, that worked on the image.

So after that, it even worked fine with the brushes? Strange...

just in case I misunderstood and it still doesn't work with brushes:
So the whole picture changes when you press the button. That's good, it means that the problem isn't the intensity slider of the tool, and it's also not a matter of masking.
Then it might be something about the selected brush. Every tool remembers its own brush settings. To check if that's the problem I would choose one of the predefined, sharp brushes out of the brush list.

[MikeFromMesa]

So after that, it even worked fine with the brushes? Strange...

just in case I misunderstood and it still doesn't work with brushes:
So the whole picture changes when you press the button. That's good, it means that the problem isn't the intensity slider of the tool, and it's also not a matter of masking.
Then it might be something about the selected brush. Every tool remembers its own brush settings. To check if that's the problem I would choose one of the predefined, sharp brushes out of the brush list.

I was trying to address the lens flare that was most prominent against a dark mountain background, fairly intense in the center and falling off toward the sides. Because of that I chose a soft brush so it would blend in the darkening on the sides. It worked well, too.

Before pressing the "Apply to Entire Image" button I could not make it darken (or lighten) anything on the photo. I kept it in place and kept pressing the mouse button over and over, but it had no effect. I tried darkening a very light sky, I tried brightening a dark shadow. Repeatedly pressing the button. Nothing, even at 100% intensity. But it all worked when I pressed the Apply button. But now I no longer have to press the Apply button as it seems to remember what its last setting was.

Thanks.

[greenmorpher]

Weird.

But what does "Apply to Entire Image" mean, exactly? Does it mean blanket change to the whole picture or does it mean the brush will work on all of highlights, midtones, and shadows within the brush area?

That is where I often wonder about not seeing an effect -- I have that button set for the wrong range of tones.

With flare across a darker mountain range, for example, you probably want to be darkening the midtones a little and the shadows more, which you would do in two separate steps.

You can apply to the entire image by just double clicking on the tool.

The above is not to be taken as criticism of the tool -- it is a result of this septuagenarian rushing in to do something kn too much of a hurry because he s concerned that he might drop dead before completing it if he doesn’t get a move on.

"Stop and think,: my mother used to tell me. Sadly, she has passed on so now I don't have to!!!

cheers, geoff

[MikeFromMesa]

Weird.
But what does "Apply to Entire Image" mean, exactly? Does it mean blanket change to the whole picture or does it mean the brush will work on all of highlights, midtones, and shadows within the brush area?

That is where I often wonder about not seeing an effect -- I have that button set for the wrong range of tones.

I agree. I had no idea what the developers meant by "Apply to Entire Image" and that is why I did not press the button until it was suggested by a previous post. But in this particular case I had tried all of the Range settings - Lights, Midtowns and Shadows - and it did not make any difference. No matter where I brushed and no matter which setting I used, nothing happened. Same thing with the Intensity. It did not make any difference. Nothing changed. Until I pressed the Apply button. Then it worked as I first thought it should. Midtowns applied to the mountains, Lights to the sky and Shadows to the shadow areas.

I like PL more and more as I learn to use it properly, but things are not always straight-forward. If the manual was more complete I might not have even had to post the question. Of course if I read German better I might be able to use the original manual and perhaps that is better than the English translation.

The above is not to be taken as criticism of the tool -- it is a result of this septuagenarian rushing in to do something kn too much of a hurry because he s concerned that he might drop dead before completing it if he doesn’t get a move on.

"Stop and think,: my mother used to tell me. Sadly, she has passed on so now I don't have to!!!

Ha! I am going to have to remember that!

[Hoogo]

...It did not make any difference. Nothing changed. Until I pressed the Apply button. Then it worked as I first thought it should...
I like PL more and more as I learn to use it properly, but things are not always straight-forward. If the manual was more complete I might not have even had to post the question. Of course if I read German better I might be able to use the original manual and perhaps that is better than the English translation.

Really, this all sounds much more like some kind of bug that is hard to detect or duplicate than like a feature that needs more addressing in the manual. It is supposed to work just like you imagined.