Histogram

[andycallaghan]

Can someone please explain the histogram to me?

And when editing a picture, what sort of graph shape should I be aiming for?

Or is it not as simple as that?

 

[nigpd]

Take a look at this

 

[f1charlie]

Another explanation from Ken Rockwell.

 

[Forbiddenbiker]

No its not as simple as that, there is no good or bad shape to a histogram ... every image is different so every histogram will be different.

Its just a useful tool.

 

[Jelster]

No its not as simple as that, there is no good or bad shape to a histogram ... every image is different so every histogram will be different.

Its just a useful tool.

Agreed, the "perfect" histogram shape doen't really exist. What looks good for a studio shoot against a white background would be completely different to a "typical" landscape shot. Tthere are "rules" applied to how a histogram should look, but like many things in photography, these rules are made to be broken.

Rule 1, Learn the rules and then learn how to break them :rules:

Steve

 

[Moonrakerz]

From Ken Rockwell's item:

"the histogram doesn't have to be in the middle"

"Try to get the histogram as close to the right side as possible without touching it"

Not hard and fast rules - very simple, but I think a good guide.

I would add one more tip:..........forget the shape of the histogram.

 

[Suvv]

Another good link http://www.cambridgeincolour.com/tutorials.htm
and this one http://www.ronbigelow.com/articles/articles.htm There are 3 Articles here, 1 under Equipment/Field issues and 2 under Editing/Photoshop.

The main point, at first anyway, is to make sure that the histogram has not got a peak at the extreme left or right edge as this means that detail is being recorded as pure black or pure white.

As usual it is not as simple as that! You may have some shadows where you are not interested in the detail or there may be reflected highlights, such as sunlight on water, where again you are not interested in the detail.

The idea of getting the histogram as far to the right as possible is to make use of the dynamic range of the sensor, you then use PP to get the image back to where you want it.

Ken Rockwell mentions this but he also advocates shooting JPEG, with JPEG it is not so easy to change the image a lot without degradation.

The other use of the histogram is when editing, keep looking at it when making changes to see what it is doing. You may start hitting the left or right edges or you may see a "combing" effect where there are gaps in the histogram. This shows that data has been lost and will degrade the image, this normally occurs sooner with JPEGs than raw.