Hi, I've been learning the zone system by Ansel Adams. I would like to take a photo and import it into photoshop so that each value in my scene matches the according grayscale measurements in photoshop (measured using Lab values).
- I used my camera and took 11 exposures of a grey card: -5 ('Black'), -4, -3, -2, -1, 0 (Mid Grey), +1, +2, +3, +4, +5 ('White').
- I then opened the files in Adobe Camera Raw (No adjustments)
- I then opened them with Photoshop
- I measured the Lightness values using Lab and plotted the points on a graph.
I see that somewhere along the line an S Curve has been applied to the input values! I would like an even distribution of the input tonal values.
How do I turn this S-curve off? Or, how do I achieve a linear curve when importing photos to photoshop?
Essentially:
I would like a linear response curve so that each tone (each 1 stop exposure from above) maps to the appropriate grayscale value in even increments (i.e., 10% steps).
Zone 0: 0% (Black)
Zone 1: 10%
Zone 2: 20%
Zone 3: 30%
Zone 4: 40%
Zone 5: 50%
Zone 6: 60%
Zone 7: 70%
Zone 8: 80%
Zone 9: 90%
Zone 10: 100% (White)
Can anyone shed any light on this issue? I'm really stumped with this one!