You've probably noticed that the graph is divided into quarters by faint vertical lines. Each of those quarters has a slider associated with it (Shadows, Darks, Lights, Highlights),and depending on which quarter you make your adjustments in (i.e. in which quarter the circle on the line is in), the corresponding slider responds to you using the circle to drag the graph line up or down. Your circle must have been in the extreme left quarter and the Shadows slider will have moved. (Have you noticed that you can adjust the range that each slider adjusts by dragging the pointers on the y axis).

For me it was a toss-up between the Curves tool and using the Blacks, Shadows, Highlights, Whites and Brightness sliders. I felt more at home with the sliders but concede that the Curves tool gives you more control over contrast - it allows you to place the contrast in specific parts of the luminosity spectrum. The sliders allow you to do that up to a point, but it's not obvious how to do it and it's more limited. I can imagine the Curves tool being popular amongst people who do a lot of conversions to B&W.

So what did you do? You did the equivalent of darkening the Shadows (possibly with a bit of lowering the Blacks). And since the steepness of the line will have increased just to the right of where you lowered the line, the contrast will have been increased in the part of the luminosity spectrum just above the darks and possibly through to the mid-tones. That increase in contrast would correspond roughly to a partial* increase in Clarity ( *partial in that it would affect only the dark end of the mid-tones, whereas Clarity affects the contrast in the whole mid-tone region. As I said, Curves gives you more targeted control over contrast).

Very nice scene. I see it's inspiring mostly straight edits. Well, here's another one :-) .

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(Download)

Rather than trying to make something "meaningful" out of it, you should get rid of the guy and just let it be a very nice shot of a lovely girl. On another note, the lighting wasn't very favourable.

Have you tried doing a rain dance to see if it brings the sun out? :-)

I was wondering who would be the first to try darkening. At first I thought you'd overdone it, but then I checked the download and found out that it has far more visible detail than the thumbnail. Thanks for contributing, Gaylord.

You should try the straight stuff more often! The hazy band along the horizon looks a bit artificial, though. Did you brighten it to add more light? Those boats look like they'd be worth a close-up or two......

Glad you're still with us, AlMac :-) . And I'm glad to see that the curtains can be enhanced. That and more vivid rain :thumbup: . And thank you for contributing.

Thanks, LS. This is the north-east corner of the Cuillins in the Isle of Skye.

To me the original looks like a shot that could have been good if it wasn't for the loss of detail that the rain/mist causes. However, mist and rain can be very atmospheric, and I was hoping that the edits would mitigate the loss of detail and inject some of the atmosphere that you get when there are curtains of rain drifting slowly past and disappearing into the distance.

Thanks for posting, Shakey. I can see that the overlay is needed to add individual raindrops (I think that's what dannac did too). And for some reason the tint shift away from purple and towards green does seem to work. Now if there was a way to enhance the "curtains" that are there but barely visible.....

Don't underestimate the effect that reflected light can have on the ambient light. In both shots it looks like much of the light in the room is being bounced off of the walls, resulting in the colour of the walls having a pronounced effect on the colour of the ambient light.

Even in the case of down-lighting, the colour of the floor coverings will have a slight effect on the ambient light. But in these cases it's the walls that are the main influence.

Thank you dannac. I notice the rain effect is applied selectively. I think it's about as vivid as it could be, within the bounds of looking natural.

Another suggestion -

Go to Edit>Preferences>Performance

Check to see if the "Use Graphics Processor" box is checked. If it is, try unchecking it. It's possible there's something in the update that the GPU doesn't like.

Other things to consider are -

Are you running RAM-hungry or processor-hungry software at the same time as LR.

Are you running LR immediately after start-up when the security software may still be busy doing its initial checks.

Have you still got the old version of LR installed and are you using the same desktop icon to start up LR?

That just about exhausts my ideas :-) . I believe Adobe can give expert advice if you contact them directly.

EDIT - Rick posted while I was compiling this response.

I get the impression this could be an OK image if only the rain could be made to look more like rain.

For anybody who isn't familiar with how rain looks when viewed against a hill or mountain, it's normal to see it falling in sheets, or perhaps "curtains" is a more accurate way to describe it. It's mesmerising to watch - assuming you don't have cold rain running down your neck - but it's difficult to capture in a shot. I'm not sure about the sky and whether it needs to be darker (or not).

Perhaps you'd like to have a go at making this shot look more like a cloud burst (or even an out-and-out storm..... ).

JPG here, link to DNG below.

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Link to DNG.
Attached file:
(Download)

That says a lot about the IQ of the D7200. You're comparing it to one of the best cameras you can get, and it's DX v FF.

Did you give it a restart after installing?