Equivalent - how to

[Greg Sarsons]

Let me start by saying I’m an extreme novice at editing photographs. I Decided to go with Photomator over LR mainly because of the cost and the integration into iCloud Photos, I also will be a light (infrequent) user. However Most of the “how to” videos I’ve found use LR as the application so I’m stumbling around a bit trying to discover similar adjustments. For example the LR light adjustment for Whites and Blacks. As I understand the LR Whites adjustment changes the brightest values in image and the Blacks changes the darkest values in the image. As I’m clearly missing depth in my understanding Photomator, what is the equivalent process? Is there similar simple sliders to adjust to get the same effect? Tks

[Soda pop]

I think that's what I asked before. Visiting this may help you.
viewtopic.php?t=30021

I short, there's no such exact 'equivalent' since it has different options.
I've been a Lumiar 3 user for a long time which had almost the same options, and also tried Lr occasionally.
I personally, thanks to the kind replies, I edit photos like:
1: Exposure (and WB alongside)
2: Adjust Brightness to find the overall tone
3: Use Highlight for avoiding the clipping.
4: Darken or brighten Shadow, then Blackpoint for bringing it back or even more darker shadow.
5: Depending the taste, Contrast might help, or maybe going back and forth among its sliders.
6: Finishing basic adjustments with Curves. Tone curves actually do work quite well for many cases imo.

Hope it'll help your situation!

[Greg Sarsons]

Thank you very much for taking the time to respond. This is exactly what I was asking about. It is a bit more “involved ” than I hoped it might be. The process you shared is the workflow I’ve landed on.

[Shelton]

Joseph has some good videos, mainly on Pixelmator - but mostly the controls are the same:

https://www.youtube.com/@JosephSlinker/videos

Shelton.

[Martin Chalifoux]

I don't have Lightroom but if the white point and black point do what I think they do, I think you can do the exact same thing using the curve setting in Photomator. The curve tool is powerful and can do what most other sliders can do. In this particular case, it is possible to add a point to the curve at either end, and if you drag that point along the edge you essentially create a black and a white point that you can adjust. Watch this video at 3:10. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yFXyRI8mfBA

You can also work with another method, use the Brightness slider first, to move your white point, then use the Black Point slider to set the black point. You need to do then in that order I believe since brightness affects the entire curve.

[Greg Sarsons]

Martin,
Thank you. I believe this is exactly the type of understanding I was looking for.

[Lysander]

I don't have Lightroom but if the white point and black point do what I think they do, I think you can do the exact same thing using the curve setting in Photomator. The curve tool is powerful and can do what most other sliders can do.

+1

Please check out this tutorial from Digital Photo Mentor: Understanding the Curve Tool: https://www.digitalphotomentor.com/unde ... o-editing/

The Curve Tool is basically the same tool in every photo editor so pretty much any tutorial you find will provide insight and knowledge. You will learn more about editing by understanding curves than you would just moving a slider!

Make sure you learn about the individual channels as well as the composite RGB curve. You will be amazed at what you can do with this one tool.

[Greg Sarsons]

Thank you… great video suggestion. I’m looking forward to trying to apply this understanding to my workflow