Mystery Shadow adjustment

[frailer]

Got  40 pager in as Illustrator PDF Spreads. 4 pages had ~350% backgrounds, with some detail getting buried. When I cracked the images in the PDF into PhSh to adjust Shadows, the Shadow adjustment field showed 35%. This happened no matter whether I chose 'Leave As Is (Don't color manage) or 'Convert to Working profile'. As it is I went for a 22% adjustment. But if they intended a 35% adjustment, why did this not 'stick'?

[frailer]

... another shot...

[DigiCorn]

Does the new PitStop have this adjustment feature, and was it tweaked after rendering?

[frailer]

This is pre-XMF render. Trying to work out why/how/what the dezinger has done to have that 35% sitting in the shadow adjustment field when you crack it open. Yet the PDF is not showing it.

[Joe]

Can I have a look at the PDF? Just so it is clear what is going on.

[frailer]

Yep. I'll do a download link Monday.

Saturday here. Voting in the most depressing Federal Election in memory.    We are about to have a Neanderthal as Prime Minister.  :sad: He will replace the recently coup-reinstated Kevin Rudd, a Narcissistic Personality Disorder. Julia Gillard, who was placed in charge by an earlier party coup, (it's allowed here), will be laughing herself silly, or slashing her wrists; not sure. She achieved miracles in a few short years, by keeping a few Independents happy in a sliver thin majority. A pox on both their houses; Liberal (Conservative), Labor (pretend labor).
Here is Abbott 'answering' a question. What he's doing, IMO, is fantasizing about beating the living crap out of the journo, which is what he is sure to have done as the school bully he inevitably was. He is barely restraining himself.
There you have it, Aussie politics at its finest.
Off to slash my own wrists...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rJ9y1c73-IM#

[gnubler]

When I was in Oz I was told you HAVE to vote in elections or else you'll get fined/taxed. True? My friend there always voted for some obscure Green Party candidate, like "pick the best of the worst" or whatever.

Doomed.

[frailer]

True. But of course you could do a cartoon of Homer on the ballot papers. As long as you've fronted and had your name ruled off in the list.

[abc]

Isn't that 35% the default value, I opened up my CS5 Photoshop and it had 35% set as well.

Preview showed the change, but it wasn't applied to the actual image until I hit ok?

[DCurry]

I'm with abc. Shadows/Highlights is not a setting that gets embedded into the file by your designer. You wouldn't go into Curves or Levels and expect to see whatever the designer applied, would you? Same principle - it's an adjustment.

BTW, I use S/H a lot and if you use it on color images, it tends to alter the colors, often in a bad way. To get around this, I like to apply the S/H adjustment I want, then immediately go to Edit>Fade... and change the setting to Luminosity. This brings the colors back to where they were, but still keeps the S/H adjustment.

[frailer]

So, a lurking Default. Add another factoid to my late-learner's PhSh knowledge. Interesting tip too, Dan.
Once again pilloried here for not second-guessing and risk-taking on this one. We're supposed to 'intuit' that the customer in Singapore or wherever wanted the backgrounds shown more clearly.
The only reason they showed up was on the way-off-on-everything lasers, which showed little resemblance to our Black Magic renditions of their files, (what we'll print; we're close to Euroscale Coated V2).
Makes note to re-sit Mind Reading 101 exam., which I obviously failed last time.

[Joe]

Isn't that 35% the default value, I opened up my CS5 Photoshop and it had 35% set as well.

Preview showed the change, but it wasn't applied to the actual image until I hit ok?

I'm with abc. Shadows/Highlights is not a setting that gets embedded into the file by your designer. You wouldn't go into Curves or Levels and expect to see whatever the designer applied, would you? Same principle - it's an adjustment.

Yes, this and this. I didn't really understand what the issue was in the original post.

[frailer]

I'll PM you a link in a few hours. But basically, Shot1 is the PDF, viewed. Shot2 is the main image cracked into PhSh; Highlights/Shadows window opened, displays as per pic, without entering any values.

[Joe]

As ABC mentioned, 35% is the Photoshop default value it assigns for every image. It is not the value someone before you applied to the image. Any image you open and do the highlight/shadow correction will default to 35%

[frailer]

Another drop in my PhSh knowledge bucket. Distinct ping as it hits the 2" at the bottom.  :laugh:
Now, why is there a 'phantom default' in there at all? Is it assumed that most pics will need that, on average. Why is it not zero, therefore for user-defining as needed?