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03/18/2004 09:13:57 PM · #1 |
Hi there,
I snapped this two days ago and still learning photograhy. There are some very bright areas here. Are those considered too bright and washed out or should I leave it as is?
Any comments would be welcome
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03/18/2004 09:17:15 PM · #2 |
The brightest areas are washed out. The key is to try and retain some visible detail throughout.
(edited to delete a mistyped letter)
Message edited by author 2004-03-18 21:17:59. |
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03/18/2004 09:28:54 PM · #3 |
Nope, a great exposure.
Open it in PS or similar program and look at the histogram. nice and evenly distributed. Also, in PS you can use the INFO box (with the navigator window) to scroll over the pic pixel by pixel and see the readings - i prefer using CMYK, and the whitest spots i see have some color in them, not much, but not blown out either.
chris |
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03/19/2004 02:17:15 AM · #4 |
Yes, but just slightly maybe by a 1/2 stop to 1 stop. With digital you can recover more details in the shadows than in the highlights. It is still a good shot.
T
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03/19/2004 06:39:40 AM · #5 |
Thanks for your replies.
It is my understanding that with digital it could be beneficial to shoot at maximum stops to the right - just before wash out and then compensate later in Photoshop since you will then have more shadow detail.
Note that if items are washed out however, you cannot salvage them later.
The article here gives further explanantion: Expose (to the ) Right |
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03/19/2004 08:26:55 AM · #6 |
Oh this is what I dislike about photography bods. A pure white area and it's over exposed and technicaly bad.
If your happy with it, then great! If you don't want a tiny white area then yes as said above increase your shutter speed or shrink your apature.
Some of the best images are dark or bright in areas, and a lot of modern images are taken that was by design at the moment so go with it and enjoy! (i must say that in your case, your image wouldn't actually suit that style)
As for the old 'expose to the right' trend that every one keeps harping on about. I try it and find it hard, I tend to favour exposures to the left as this is the prime position of nice color saturation - I thought I was odd until I read that most professionals also expose to the left slightly to retain color detail.
Go figure..depends who you listen to I guess ;)
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03/19/2004 10:04:43 AM · #7 |
Originally posted by jonpink:
Oh this is what I dislike about photography bods. A pure white area and it's over exposed and technicaly bad.
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Yeh..tell me about it !! I`ve got plenty comments to that effect on my portrait submission.
Last time I try something different :(
I agree with Jon, if you like it stick with it.
Gordon |
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03/19/2004 10:48:31 AM · #8 |
Originally posted by jonpink:
As for the old 'expose to the right' trend that every one keeps harping on about. I try it and find it hard, I tend to favour exposures to the left as this is the prime position of nice color saturation - I thought I was odd until I read that most professionals also expose to the left slightly to retain color detail.
Go figure..depends who you listen to I guess ;) |
The only deal with that is that exposing to the left increases the noise. The 'expose to the right' idea is based on the fact that digital sensors (unlike film) are linear and the SNR changes from shadows to highlights. Basically, for each one stop change in tone, you double the amount of levels available to express the signal information.
So your shadows you might have 64 levels, your highlights you might have 1024 levels - for the same one stop difference in light levels. This means you can capture more subtle data exposing as much as possible in the highlights (without blowing them out)
For the best, noiseless images, you want as much as possible of the data to be captured (in a RAW file) to be as far to the highlights as you can, but then you have to 'underexpose' in software to get it right back to what the original shot should be (i.e., if you want more saturation and slightly underexposed - you do it later)
The idea of 'exposing to the right' makes no sense at all for JPEG captures for example.
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03/19/2004 11:06:12 AM · #9 |
Originally posted by Gordon:
The idea of 'exposing to the right' makes no sense at all for JPEG captures for example. |
Why? The Expose to the right 'idea' has been out for a while. RAW files are very new, newer than the 'idea'. The overwhelming majority of cameras cannot do RAW, and from what i read, most folks are unhappy with the RAW converters out there.
I now tend to expose to the right a bit more than before, and one can always crank up the saturation in PS. If a pic has dark areas and you try to lighten them up, they (and tho whole pic perhaps) gets very noisy very quickly. The objective is a balanced histogram, with data spread (somewhat, depending upon subject) evenly from one end to the other. If there is no data at either end, you have left image info unrecorded regardless. If it isn't recorded, you can't work with it whether a jpeg or RAW file.
chris |
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03/19/2004 11:07:40 AM · #10 |
Well you can do it with JPEGs, its just stupid.
The amount of tonal adjustment you need to do, to properly expose to the right, requires a high bit file. If you try to do it with an 8bit file, you'll end up with something roughly equivalent to a 6 bit, posterised result.
Also, the entire principle, and value of this technique is based on exploiting the linearity of the sensor. By the time you've converted it as a JPEG you've removed that information from the file.
I'm sure some people are happy with that, but it doesn't mean it makes any sense to do it.
Note, that there is a distinct difference between getting a good exposure, without blowing highlights, and the 'expose to the right' technique described in the linked article, which specifically talks about deliberate overexposure to preserve shadow detail.
Good exposure is always the right idea, but a +1 or +2 exposure for a midtone/dark scene, with the express purpose of doing a software underexposure makes no sense for JPEG captures.
Message edited by author 2004-03-19 11:23:19.
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03/19/2004 11:22:03 AM · #11 |
| Unless your camera has histograms for all three channels, you can't entirely rely on the in-camera histogram for exposing to the right. For general use, it's a good principle, but you have to be careful, especially with red/blue macro work. I prefer to shoot in RAW with AEB to be safe. |
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03/19/2004 11:24:38 AM · #12 |
Originally posted by dwoolridge:
Unless your camera has histograms for all three channels, you can't entirely rely on the in-camera histogram for exposing to the right. For general use, it's a good principle, but you have to be careful, especially with red/blue macro work. I prefer to shoot in RAW with AEB to be safe. |
Yup,the main problem with the expose to the right techniques is single or dual channel clipping, which the exposure warnings on the camera do nothing to indicate.
Its bad enough with normal exposures, never mind deliberately pushing the highlight regions on those colour channels.
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03/19/2004 11:39:50 AM · #13 |
Actually the settings on the camera histogram is based on the in-camera adjustment numbers (saturation + contrast).
A more accurate setting would be to shoot RAW and use the lowest saturation and contrast you can find, then the histogram is more accurate (it would also avoid most channel clipping issues).
Besides, whoever says you have to convert @ normal settings, anyway?
Originally posted by dwoolridge:
Unless your camera has histograms for all three channels, you can't entirely rely on the in-camera histogram for exposing to the right. For general use, it's a good principle, but you have to be careful, especially with red/blue macro work. I prefer to shoot in RAW with AEB to be safe. |
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03/19/2004 12:07:48 PM · #14 |
So... I don't know about the other Canon DSLR's but with the 300D I can set it for 'parameter 1', 'paramter 2', 'Adobe RGB', or a choice of 3 custom settings. These prameters does affect even shots in .RAW format.
So far I have been using parameter 1 as this is explained to produce the most crisp and vivid prints by automatically adjusting the contrast, saturation and sharpness to a value of +1. The parameter 2 setting apparently sets the contrast, sharpness, saturation and color tone all to zero. I assume on paganini's post that this is what he would recommend.
My question though: if the parameter 2 setting is supposedly neutral, what does the adobe RGB setting do then? (I have only been into SLR photography for a couple of months - hence I haven't studied the pro's and con's of adobe RGB yet). |
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03/19/2004 12:38:34 PM · #15 |
Originally posted by paganini:
Actually the settings on the camera histogram is based on the in-camera adjustment numbers (saturation + contrast). |
Not really relevant. For conditions under which serious channel clipping would occur, these settings affect the histogram very little.
Originally posted by paganini:
A more accurate setting would be to shoot RAW and use the lowest saturation and contrast you can find, then the histogram is more accurate (it would also avoid most channel clipping issues). |
Wrong. It does not avoid most channel clipping issues at all. The histogram is different when you change settings, but it's not necessarily more accurate (whatever that means).
Originally posted by paganini:
Besides, whoever says you have to convert @ normal settings, anyway? |
If you're talking about RAW conversion settings, it matters little if your channel is severely clipped (i.e., there's nothing to salvage), but this happens in very extreme situations only. On average, you can rescue some of the data (color accuracy), but plenty of channel detail is lost. |
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