PhotoLab 4.1 Colour Wheel and Colour Range Display

I like the new addition to the HSL Colour Wheel where you can see the areas that would be affected by changes to Saturation, Luminance or Uniformity of a selected colour range (with everything else in the image shown in greyscale). However, the method of selecting it is non-intuitive (as evidenced in a number of postings on this topic in other threads). Also you cannot make changes to Saturation, Luminance or Uniformity of the colour range while viewing the greyscale & colour range version of the image - as the image reverts to the full colour mode when you are no longer clicking on the colour range handle on the colour wheel.

What I propose is that the greyscale & colour range version of the image should be able to be toggled on / off via a checkbox in the HSL tool palette. In addition, if changes are made to the Saturation, Luminance or Uniformity of the colour range while in greyscale & colour range mode these changes should be visible in the colour range that is visible in the image.

Either that or the Ctrl key should also affect changes to the sliders.

On rethinking it through, I would say that @SAFC01 has a good idea. If there is room for a label saying about the Ctrl key, why not replace that with a checkbox that toggles the mode, thus avoiding having to maintain the Ctrl key all the time.

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Joanna,
a very good idea – and doing so, PL’s HSL tool would be even more intuitiv to handle!

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The existing message is very cryptic and unfortunately does not make a reference to left-clicking in the wheel sector. The user manual page is also silent on this new interface.

Like my own Thread to this topic says; it’s very inuitiv in this manner. And the second: without beeing able to use it only as a local adjustment, it doesn’t make sense for me. Turning the red jacket into blue, but also get blue spots in the face:-(

You can use it as colorcast correction.
But mostly i use it for vibrance on a group of colors.
Like boosting a flowerleaf or refreshing grassgreen.
Enhancing fall colors.

NIK’s color efex can do this also i am sure but staying in dxo is much faster.
Mostly i finish my image, create a virtual copy and start playing with that one.
Export master and VC and compair them as jpeg.

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This is the obvious way to do it although I can understand the UI designer trying to keep the UI “clean” but this is at the expense of UX.

DXO are making good progress in improving PL. With the ability to show a mask they are within touching distance of being able to convert the mask “display” into a local adjustment image mask. This is when the power starts :slight_smile:

As people have pointed out global adjustments of HSL are far from perfect because they will on most images impact the colour in other areas, no matter how careful the selection. Can you show images where it works perfectly? Yes but not generally.

The way to develop the HSL colour editing is to follow the example of Capture One which has the best colour editor capabilities of any raw converter. DXO should not be reticent of copying others as they were the first with Clear View (dehaze) and everyone else copied them. When LR introduced Dehaze, sliced bread had been reinvented :slight_smile:

These images show the UI in C1. Note that there is a checkbox for “view selected colour range” and that the picked colour is shown, not as the whole colour slice as in DXO, but as a range of saturation as well. Note also the buttons to turn the selection into a full saturation range and to “invert” the selection, the before/after colour swatch and the RGB/HSB readouts. You can also select multiple colour ranges for adjustment and turn them on/off in the Colour Editor tool tab.

As I said earlier C1 has the best colour editor available in raw converters and that’s without mentioning the direct on-screen colour adjustment in the basic colour editor and the dedicated skin tones editor :slight_smile:

DXO may want to leave integration of the colour editor for V5 but making the HSL control similar to C1 should be done as a point update for V4 - the market is very competitive. Significant point updates are also a very effective marketing tool.

C1 Colour Edit-3

C1 Colour Edit-5

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Because Controlpoints are color selective and feading in radius and by saturation/hue/brightnes selective as in feading in and out.
This would be a excellent tool to combine with HSL

Brush and such are location selective so not specific color related.
Also excellent combining but more as a local version working like the global version.

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Good morning, guys!

@StevenL could you, please, analyze this feedback as it already has a good number of votes?

Thank you,
Regards,
Svetlana G.

As with a lot of threads, this one has diverged :roll_eyes: Which particular aspect were you thinking about?

About the initial suggestion to add a checkbox.

Regards,
Svetlana G.

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That’s what I had hoped :blush:

1 Like