From left to right, these images have been set at +0 Highlight +0 White, +100 Highlight +0 White, and +0 Highlight +100 White. Let's look at a quick example by pushing the sliders up to +100.īelow, we see a Fuji X-Pro 2 and Helios 44-4 shot. Because of this relationship, it's best to set your white point with the White slider before you adjust your Highlight slider. Even at +100, the Highlight slider will never push bright pixels past the white point sent by the White slider. It's important to note that the Highlight slider will only modify brightness values within the boundaries set by the White slider. The true utility of the Highlight slider is to recover lost detail in the brightest parts of your image or to globally brighten your image without pushing your exposure past the white point. The Highlight slider adjusts the bright values in your photograph. If your image still isn't bright enough with a +100 White slider, you can use the Exposure slider to blast your image with light values – usually at the expense of noisy shadows or clipped highlights. It should be a deliberate stylistic decision to set the white point below 'true white'. Having a 'true white' point gives your image a strong 'pop' and ensures that you've maximized the dynamic range of your composition. If your photo was underexposed in-camera, you can remedy the dullness by moving the White slider to the right until you hit the right edge of the histogram. This is where Ansel Adam's lesson of a 'true white' comes back in to play. The White slider dictates the absolute brightest value of your image. The White, Highlight, Black, and Shadow sliders in Lightroom. Your photo may look slightly flat in-camera, but luckily, we have a way to fix that.
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In the age of digital photography, the best practice is to leave some buffer room in your histogram (Note: Need a quick brush-up on histograms? Click here) by slightly over exposing the black point and under exposing the white point. If you don't expose your image perfectly, you'll never recover the visual information you may have clipped. Now, hitting true black and true white in-camera is quite risky. Although contemporary colorists tend to lift the black point above 'true black' for that fuzzy, faded look and color the white point for a nostalgic tint, the concept of 'true' values will help you understand the subtle difference between the Lightroom sliders.