Histogram Has Little to No Info In Highlights

[Ken Rahaim]

I wasn't sure of the best place to post a question like this so I'll give it a go in the beginners section. Please let me know if this post is better suited to another forum...

I took these photos of President Bush late last week at a speech just before he left for his trip to Africa:

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They all look decent enough on screen (to me, anyway) but judging by the histogram (sample below is from the second photo), I know they'll all print very dark:

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When I try to adjust the white point in levels, the President's face gets totally blown out. My questions are multi-fold:

1 - What could I have done in camera to avoid this kind of problem in the first place? More to the point, what does this histogram tell me that I should've done? In this particular case, TV lighting was set up and I shot with no strobes.

2 - What could I have done in raw to fix the problem?

3 - What, if anything can be done in photoshop?

4 - Or is this the best I could expect given the conditions and trying to expose the president's face well?

I'm happy to provide whatever additional information if it'll help any explanation. Shot particulars are 1/100th sec @ f/4 and iso1000. Focal length is 280mm (70-200 @ 200mm w/ 1.4tc).

[Peter Frahm]

The exposures look reasonably good, you do have highlight info..it's being shown in the short black tail trailing off the right side of your histogram, that's all the info you need as it represents the very small percentage of bright points in your image..face, shirt, logo on the podium. you're already clipping in some of those areas.

In raw? Open the image in your converter and check to see if that extreme, highlight info is present. you could then re process to include the clipped info and work from there in PS.

If you want to try to darken his face a bit from the processed images you already have, then make a simple, slightly feathered selection of his face and play with the mid slider in levels just to see what's what.

 You don't always have to have bunch of stuff slammed up against the right or left side. There really is no set rule about how histograms should be. They are all different and you make choices about how to set your points. In this case, you've seen that trying to place that white point to the left causes clipping and it looks ugly.

Your prints should print just the way your images look if you are calibrated and managing your color reasonably well.

Hope that helps.

[chilehead]

4 - Or is this the best I could expect given the conditions and trying to expose the president's face well?

Yup.  If you intended to focus attention on the President, and not the map, I'd say you did the best job possible without a longer lens.

Like Peter said; there is no set rule.  If you want to include the map (which helps to place this image in context) then you could fix the light fall off with a graduated mask in Photoshop.

Mark

[Misirlou]

One thing you could do is find several pictures on the net that you like. Copy them to a local computer and open them in Photoshop. Then you could examine their histograms and get a feel for how the real world looks hitogramatically (as if that's a word). Sometimes, you'll find that very good images look nothing like the typical histograms in textbooks and so forth.

[Misirlou]

One thing you could do is find several pictures on the net that you like. Copy them to a local computer and open them in Photoshop. Then you could examine their histograms and get a feel for how the real world looks hitogramatically (as if that's a word). Sometimes, you'll find that very good images look nothing like the typical histograms in textbooks and so forth.

[mbutler]

I think you did a fine job, especially at that focal length, shutter speed, and ISO. Your histogram shows mostly specular highlights that got blown and some shadows that got blocked up. However, I don't think you'll find that the majority of W's face is blown. The sin here is blowing important highlight detail. In the lower values, you got good detail on W's suit and the maps. The blocked up shadows appear to be the back of spectators heads. Not important.

I wouldn't do anything in levels here, except maybe adjust the middle slider slightly. Curves will give you finer control in the 1/4 and 3/4 tones.

In camera, I might have dialed back the exposure compensation 1/3 or 1/2 (or used auto bracketing and multishot to protect myself. Still, I think you did great. A pro PJ or Strobist-type geek would have used flash(es) to decrease the dynamic range, but that's a whole nother story, and they get better access besides.

Happy shooting (and processing).

[Morgan_Moore]

It seems that you have been reading on the net about what a histogram 'should' look like

With a 'typical scene' one is looking for a nice distribution like a hump from the black end to the white end

This is however not a typical scene - it looks to be perfectly exposed to me

Imagine a more extremely atypical scene - a black night with the moon as a very small part of the image

here the histogram would be mainly empty with just a bump where the moon shows

that would be correct exposure with a wierd histogram

S

[Ken Rahaim]

Sorry it took a bit to reply and say thanks. Been a busy week shooting. I really appreciate the thoughtful responses.

I think you did a fine job, especially at that focal length, shutter speed, and ISO.

Thanks...

For the focal length & shutter speedd I've got my new monopod and Canon's IS to thank. For the ISO, I've got Canon's 5D CMOS sensor to thank .

It seems that you have been reading on the net about what a histogram 'should' look like

Net, books, lots of sources... but you, Peter, misirlou, Mark have hit the nail on the head. I've been suffering from a bit of tunnel vision WRT histograms lately.

One thing you could do is find several pictures on the net that you like. Copy them to a local computer and open them in Photoshop. Then you could examine their histograms and get a feel for how the real world looks hitogramatically (as if that's a word). Sometimes, you'll find that very good images look nothing like the typical histograms in textbooks and so forth.

Excellent idea misirlou. Thanks. Maybe that'll help me break my tunnel vision WRT the "ideal" histo.

[Jonathan Wienke]

Don't get tooo wrapped up in what a histogram "should" look like. In these images, you have very small highlight areas (the President's face and shirt collar) where you want to keep detail, and you did a good job doing that. If you had increased exposure much, you would have blown those highlights and ruined the shots. The only time you should categorically increase exposure is if there is NOTHING near the right edge of the histogram, which is not the case here. You did fine.

[redbutt]

One other thing to what has already been said...remember what a histogram is actually showing you.  It is simply showing you the relative density of pixels at any given point.  So, that histogram is NOT saying you have no highlights.  It IS saying that you don't have a ton of bright pixels in the image...and look at the image...that's correct.  The image is mostly mid tones skewed to the darker side.  So, that histogram seems pretty dead on for that scene...as has been said.

If you wanted to try anything in the RAW processing, try boosting the exposure compensation 1/3 to 1/2 a stop and see how that looks.  At ISO 1000, you might have too much noise in the shadows to go any higher than 1/2 stop.  But, it will brighten up the image.