Lightroom Tips

Tip: Black and Whites…Difference Between RAW and JPEG

I know that most of us using Lightroom probably shoot raw most of the time. But I’m constantly importing photos from my point-and-shoot as well and those aren’t i the raw format. Plus, I’ll typically work with photos my family takes and they’re DEFINITELY not in the raw format. So when it comes to black and whites this tip is kinda important. See, if you import a RAW photo into Lightroom, it automatically adds contrast to the photo as part of Lightroom’s RAW conversion process. (If you look in the Tone Curve panel you’ll see that Medium Contrast is selected in the pop-up menu.) However, if you import JPEG photos, there is no contrast applied by Lightroom (Tone Curve is set to Linear). Since, contrast is huge when it comes to Black and Whites then try choosing Medium Contrast from the Point Curve pop-up menu before doing anything else. Heck, even try the Strong Contrast option as it may work well too. The main idea here, though, is that there is no contrast being added by default (like there is with raw files) so you’ll have to do it yourself.

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