DC10Tim From United Kingdom, joined Jan 2005, 1405 posts, RR: 16 Posted (7 years 7 months 1 week 1 day 8 hours ago) and read 2110 times:
Hi everyone,
I was just wondering when editing, if to get the levels correct, bringing the small triangles in Photoshop to the edges of the histogram actually gave an accurate indication of what was actually seen?
Below is a shot of mine, taken in bright sunlight that for some reason seems a little subdued. Similarly, a lot of my shots from the weekend seem like great sunset shots, or shots taken in low sunlight, but were in actual fact taken in bright sunlight. Is this my imagination, or is there something I'm overlooking that I should be aware of? How do you get "sunny" photos?
Eadster From Australia, joined Jan 2005, 2214 posts, RR: 16 Reply 1, posted (7 years 7 months 1 week 1 day 4 hours ago) and read 2077 times:
Excellent pic Tim.
The way I check is that (and this may have been discussed already) is that if there is flat on the left of the graph, the image is over-exposed and on the right the image is under-exposed. If thats the case, I drag the outer triangles to the edge of where the graph starts. If you get what I mean!
I used to have the problem with different lenses of mine as some pics where coming out dark on bright days. Now I use Exposure Compensation to fix the prob. I still use a lens from film days on my digital. Quality is still ok but thats why I have use exposure compensation.
Other than doing that, in Photoshop, if you go to "image" -> "Adjust" -> "auto levels" it does it for you!
According to my photoshop here, all the levels are ok on your image.
Hopefully what I have said here is right. Someone will soon tell us otherwise!
DC10Tim From United Kingdom, joined Jan 2005, 1405 posts, RR: 16 Reply 6, posted (7 years 7 months 1 week 21 hours ago) and read 1998 times:
Quoting Eadster (Reply 5): sorry guys, reading that again, I totally misunderstood what was asked and dribbled on.
Not at all Martin, what you described is exactly what I do, bringing the triangles into the edge of the histogram. Often I have to increase the brightness of the midtones too.
Thanks to the rest of you. The monitor is calibrated and the colours generally look excellent, it's just I don't seem to be able to get that brilliant contrast of bright sunny days that makes the fuselage look really bright.
Perhaps the shot I linked to isn't the best example. On reflection this morning, it does seem reasonably bright. I'm just wanting to achieve the brilliant contrast that sunny days bring and "bringing the triangles in" doesn't seem to achieve this with all "sunny" shots. This may be how it is in real life, which was really the question I was asking to begin with, if that histogram from left to right is a true representation of what the conditions were when the shutter was clicked?
With the shot below, I have had to massively increase the brightness of the midtones to get it looking anything close to daylight Bringing the triangles in to the edges of the histogram left it looking very very dark. It was only after comparison with Fergul's shot of the same aircraft I realized mine was way off. Even now, I'm not convinced the colour temperature is accurate and brightening it so much has created quite a bit of grain.
Jan Mogren From Sweden, joined Dec 2000, 2043 posts, RR: 52 Reply 7, posted (7 years 7 months 1 week 21 hours ago) and read 1990 times:
Tim,
if you needed to adjust it that way, then probably it was slightly underexposed. You need to have the pixels at the right of the histogram in camera just a wee tiny bit from the edge.
/JM
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From United Kingdom, joined Jan 2005, 1405 posts, 
From Australia, joined Jan 2005, 2214 posts, 
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Bringing the triangles in to the edges of the histogram left it looking very very dark. It was only after comparison with Fergul's shot of the same aircraft I realized mine was way off. Even now, I'm not convinced the colour temperature is accurate and brightening it so much has created quite a bit of grain. 
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