Shadows and Highlights

[Bryan]

I normally try to achieve a balanced histogram using levels layers in PS. OK some subjects need to have a skewed shape, but I try to avoid blown highlights and detail free shadows. This is difficult with a Sony sensor, as bright reds and blues often appear over saturated.

 

However I've just conducted some industrial espionage, taking a look at a successful contributor's images in PS. They are characteristically both bright and saturated, and typically have blown highlights and totally black shadows. I.e. there is a vertical line at each end of the levels histogram in PS.

 

Time for a rethink?

[TeeCee]

I think what sells is what catches the customers eye, and not technical perfection. Photos sold here are often not for editorial use, hence the person in an organisation assigned to “finding a photo for the up-coming sales presentation” won’t have any visual training whatsoever, they just know what they like.

I remember back in the early days of Alamy, the advice was not to have too much contrast in the image, it then being easier for the buyer to reproduce. Looking back now, some of my earlier shots need a revamp, this time with the emphasis on saleability.

[MDM]

Contrasty images have more visual impact but I think it is best to still aim for retaining shadow and highlight detail rather than total blow out. That way the buyer has a choice - they can blow out the highlights and shadows if they want but they can't go the other way.

[spacecadet]

PS is too time-consuming for me, but I'm finding that Auto Tone in LR tends to favour shadows so I always have to drag down the highlights. But the idea of having to individually match 600 images by hand doesn't appeal.

No doubt I can put a highlight reduction in my preset, but the thing is I don't always agree with LR- not letting them blow a bit can flatten an image. Could my real problem be overexposure?

 

BTW QC guidelines used to say that clipping was a failure reason. Apparently no more.

[Phil Preston]

PS is too time-consuming for me, but I'm finding that Auto Tone in LR tends to favour shadows so I always have to drag down the highlights. But the idea of having to individually match 600 images by hand doesn't appeal.

 

If you have LR6 (not sure if applicable to earlier versions too) the feature for matching multiple exposures is a lot easier than doing 600 matches individually! Have a look at their brief tutorial https://m.facebook.com/lightroom/ Scroll down to the one on matching multiple exposures.

[MDM]

I would say that it's not so much that PS is time consuming but that it is better to do most work on the raw file (preferably a high bit raw file).

 

Also PS Levels are very restricted in what they can do - Levels is one-dimensional really and many experts would say that Levels should really only be used for setting black and white points (mainly for printing), Curves being the tool of choice in PS for manipulating contrast.

 

But for printing, LR has advanced so much in terms of soft proofing, using Levels in PS for setting black and white points is probably pretty outdated. It is now much easier to do any final adjustments on a proof copy and, if printing oneself, then print from LR rather than PS.

[spacecadet]

 

PS is too time-consuming for me, but I'm finding that Auto Tone in LR tends to favour shadows so I always have to drag down the highlights. But the idea of having to individually match 600 images by hand doesn't appeal.

If you have LR6 (not sure if applicable to earlier versions too) the feature for matching multiple exposures is a lot easier than doing 600 matches individually! Have a look at their brief tutorial https://m.facebook.com/lightroom/ Scroll down to the one on matching multiple exposures.

 

Thanks for that, very handy. That one's going on a Post-it note, if there's room. Monitors are a lot thinner than they used to be.

[Allan Bell]

 

PS is too time-consuming for me, but I'm finding that Auto Tone in LR tends to favour shadows so I always have to drag down the highlights. But the idea of having to individually match 600 images by hand doesn't appeal.

If you have LR6 (not sure if applicable to earlier versions too) the feature for matching multiple exposures is a lot easier than doing 600 matches individually! Have a look at their brief tutorial https://m.facebook.com/lightroom/ Scroll down to the one on matching multiple exposures.

 

 

 

Yes another thank you too. That is one shortcut that I had not seen before.

 

Allan

[mickfly]

Excellent tip, but make sure you apply any presets first ie clarity, saturation adjustments first because if you apply the preset afterwards it will cancel the global exposure matching.

 

Edit: Ignore this post of mine, it's wrong.

[M.Chapman]

 

PS is too time-consuming for me, but I'm finding that Auto Tone in LR tends to favour shadows so I always have to drag down the highlights. But the idea of having to individually match 600 images by hand doesn't appeal.

If you have LR6 (not sure if applicable to earlier versions too) the feature for matching multiple exposures is a lot easier than doing 600 matches individually! Have a look at their brief tutorial https://m.facebook.com/lightroom/ Scroll down to the one on matching multiple exposures.

 

 

Excellent. I didn't know you could do that.

[Phil Preston]

 

 

PS is too time-consuming for me, but I'm finding that Auto Tone in LR tends to favour shadows so I always have to drag down the highlights. But the idea of having to individually match 600 images by hand doesn't appeal.

 

If you have LR6 (not sure if applicable to earlier versions too) the feature for matching multiple exposures is a lot easier than doing 600 matches individually! Have a look at their brief tutorial https://m.facebook.com/lightroom/ Scroll down to the one on matching multiple exposures.

 

Excellent. I didn't know you could do that.

I only discovered it myself recently, I did get an update on LR6 recently so it might be a new feature.

[spacecadet]

 

 

 

PS is too time-consuming for me, but I'm finding that Auto Tone in LR tends to favour shadows so I always have to drag down the highlights. But the idea of having to individually match 600 images by hand doesn't appeal.

If you have LR6 (not sure if applicable to earlier versions too) the feature for matching multiple exposures is a lot easier than doing 600 matches individually! Have a look at their brief tutorial https://m.facebook.com/lightroom/ Scroll down to the one on matching multiple exposures.

 

Excellent. I didn't know you could do that.

I only discovered it myself recently, I did get an update on LR6 recently so it might be a new feature.

 

It's in 5.7.

[MDM]

Excellent tip, but make sure you apply any presets first ie clarity, saturation adjustments first because if you apply the preset afterwards it will cancel the global exposure matching.

 

It only affects the exposure slider so, as long as the preset doesn't have the exposure box ticked when the preset was created, it won't have any effect which order it's done in.

[MDM]

 

 

 

 

PS is too time-consuming for me, but I'm finding that Auto Tone in LR tends to favour shadows so I always have to drag down the highlights. But the idea of having to individually match 600 images by hand doesn't appeal.

If you have LR6 (not sure if applicable to earlier versions too) the feature for matching multiple exposures is a lot easier than doing 600 matches individually! Have a look at their brief tutorial https://m.facebook.com/lightroom/ Scroll down to the one on matching multiple exposures.

 

Excellent. I didn't know you could do that.

I only discovered it myself recently, I did get an update on LR6 recently so it might be a new feature.

 

It's in 5.7.

 

 

Apparently it's been around forever but it's mostly ignored or unknown. I think this is partly because it has limited practical application - it may be most useful if you do exposure bracketing and forget to turn it off when you don't intend to use it so end up with a load of different exposures of different images and want to equalise the exposures. If you have under or overexposed a series of pictures by the same amount, then syncing the whole series is better as you will probably want to sync other parameters such as shadows and highlights.

[mickfly]

 

Excellent tip, but make sure you apply any presets first ie clarity, saturation adjustments first because if you apply the preset afterwards it will cancel the global exposure matching.

 

It only affects the exposure slider so, as long as the preset doesn't have the exposure box ticked when the preset was created, it won't have any effect which order it's done in.

 

Correct, not sure how I managed to muck it up, my apologies.

[MDM]

No need to apologise - it's one of those things that people forget with presets - they only affect what is ticked. I checked it out before posting and figured out how the Match Exposures thing works anyway so I learnt something from that. Like a lot of people I remember seeing it years ago, probably tried it and then never used it.

[Bill Brooks]

I always let specular highlights blow out, and deep deep shadows go to black. If I can’t see into it when taking the image, then I don’t want it. 

 

Here is an example: Specular highlights on water blown. Shadows lower right corner down to black. Black foreground shadows and distant, quite light, hillside shadows at top give a hazy 3D distance effect.

 

I could remove water and leaf highlights and some of the haze with a polarizer but then the image would lose a lot.

 

Down with balanced histograms

 

[spacecadet]

I agree with that. I'll only pull them back if there's detail in them. Not for water, but for a floodlit building or some such. It's not always clear to me in LR which channels are blown, if they all aren't- perhaps I'm missing something.

 

Edit-just worked that out. The clipping arrow is the colour of the clipped channel unless it's white for all 3.

[Ed Rooney]

I never look at a histogram anymore. A histogram is just a graphic representation of the scene. I read the scene.

[Jill Morgan]

I stopped checking the histogram as well ages ago.  I only do presets for CA and Lens Correction.  I load them all in ACR - select all - hit the Auto button, and them work on each individual image from there.

 

My eye tells me what looks good (to me anyway)

 

Jill

[Ed Rooney]

Exactly, Jill. I don't want to replace "seeing" with technology either.

 

And I don't want to be dealing with batches of images . . . just one image at a time. Sure if you do mostly tabletop or studio shooting, most of your images will be the same, or nearly the same. I'm on the street dealing with general access subjects. 

[MDM]

I recall the last time I got into a "discussion" with Ed about the histogram so won't bother to go there again - Ed is not convincable and his images look just fine in terms of tonal range, brightness and contrast to me.

 

However, for the benefit of those who may not have the same expert tonal judgement as Ed, I would just like to say that the LR histo is incredibly useful, not just for judging tonal range but also for assessing whether your monitor is in the right brightness ballpark (especially if not hardware calibrated). It is way more than a simple tool - it can be used to manipulate the image directly instead of using the sliders. In soft proofing mode, it does some great stuff for those who make their own prints. And it makes a good cup of coffee if you ask it nicely.

[Ed Rooney]

I recall the last time I got into a "discussion" with Ed about the histogram so won't bother to go there again - Ed is not convincable and his images look just fine in terms of tonal range, brightness and contrast to me.

 

However, for the benefit of those who may not have the same expert tonal judgement as Ed, I would just like to say that the LR histo is incredibly useful, not just for judging tonal range but also for assessing whether your monitor is in the right brightness ballpark (especially if not hardware calibrated). It is way more than a simple tool - it can be used to manipulate the image directly instead of using the sliders. In soft proofing mode, it does some great stuff for those who make their own prints. And it makes a good cup of coffee if you ask it nicely.

 

 

I'm in total agreement with what you're saying . . . but I arrive at the opposite conclusion (and I can always use a good cup of coffee). Understand, I did use the histogram for a long time when I moved into digital photography from the world of film; all these digital tools are helpful and fun to use. We didn't have the help provided by a histogram when shooting film, and Kodachrome was not terribly forgiving. I was forced to judge from viewing the scene. I also learned to judge exposure without a light meter and to focus manually. I confess to letting the camera do both those things for me these days, most of the time. 

 

If you feel you need the histogram in your workflow, by all means use it. But in the long run, I think it would be more helpful to work at improving your judgement on what you see. I tune my Spanish guitar by ear, by the way, not with a digital tuner. 

[Betty LaRue]

I believe in the histogram. I'm shooting X-T2, What You See Is What You Get. But on a bright day, when I don't want blown out clouds, I always check to see if the right side is pegged before taking the shot so I can dial in correction if needed.

Once the whites are blown badly, there's not much forgiveness.

And yes, MDM, the histogram while developing the image is invaluable. Especially since it's been a while since I've calibrated.

[MDM]

The real value of the histogram, and I'm talking the raw histogram in the Develop Module in Lightroom, not the one you see on the back of your camera (that is a jpeg histo I believe), is that it is device independent. This means that if Ed, Betty and I all have the same raw image on our screens, it is almost certain that the images will look different because we will have different brightnesses, contrasts and colours but the histograms will all be identical (assuming soft proofing is not on).

 

So if Betty's monitor is too dark, then she will probably increase the exposure and the histo will then start showing clipping of the highlights. She may not have looked at the histo but her image is now too bright with washed out highlights. This will be apparent if she prints that image. That is what monitor calibration is all about - getting an absolute quantitative measurement of the light and the colours so that what I see on my monitor is pretty much what Ed and Betty see. In the absence of calibration, the histogram gives a very good idea if the monitor brightness is in the right ballpark.

 

In terms of the guitar analogy, I could probably tune a guitar perfectly by ear but it would all be relative - my middle C would probably not be 256 hertz or whatever it is supposed to be. I would need a tuner to get that one absolute note to start me off. While that doesn't matter if you are playing solo, it is really vital to get an accurate tuning if you are playing in a band.

 

It's the histo that allows me to look at somebody's images here on Alamy and guess that their monitor is turned up too bright so the images all look dark. That is probably the most common error that people who don't calibrate make.

 

An additional use of the raw histo for me: I use different monitors when I'm on the move. My main monitor is very good and I can distinguish highlight detail very close to absolute white. Not so on my other monitors even if I have the brightness and contrast set by hardware. My MacBookPro can't distinguish highlight detail that is visible on my main monitor even though both are calibrated. The only way I can do any serious work converting raw images on the MacBookPro that will stand up when I get home is to look at the raw histogram and maybe use the eyedropper tool in LR. When I'm using my main monitor, I do process primarily by eye though and my judgement is generally very accurate. But I do love that little histo. It's like the speedometer on my car - it tells me if I'm going too fast even though I can usually judge the speed without it.