All language subtitles for 4. Histogram

What I want to do now is let's

go through some photographs that we photographed of

Lisa and Dylan, and these are the shots.

They're straight out of the camera.

They're all raw.

Nothing's been done to these photographs whatsoever.

But what actually is a histogram, and what

does it represent?

Because as far as we're concerned, it's just

peaks and valleys, and it's all confusing.

So what do we, what do we need

to know?

Well, let's go a little bit closer, and

let's have a look.

So, what is a histogram?

Well, it's a graphic representation of the number

of pixels at each luminance value in an

image.

Now, here we've got different values.

As you can see, we've got the value

from all the way from black, which is

0, and then 255 is white.

So even though we've got 0 to 255,

there's not 255 levels of brightness.

It's actually 256, because we have to count

0 as black, 255 as white, and that's

how we go.

Now, here we see the actual histogram.

Of course, as you can see, the left

side indicates shadow clipping.

All right, so in other words, clipping basically

means that we have no detail in blacks.

On the right-hand side, we have the

actual, it indicates highlight clipping, or it's, this

is the highlights.

The way I like to remember it is

SH, shadow highlights.

Remember, shh, remember, remember that.

That'll actually really help you understand it.

And of course, now the height of the

peaks, what does that represent?

Well, that's actually how many pixels you have

in a particular range.

So, a common suggestion is to spread the

pixel values evenly across the, the way here,

and I'm thinking, well, you know what, that's

not always the case.

It's nice to have a nice little peak

of a little mountain, and then coming all

the way down, but your histogram will never

be perfect.

So, we have to understand that.

Now, what about this red, green, blue?

What does that basically mean?

Well, it's made up of three colors, and

red, green, and blue are the color channels.

Now, where red and green actually overlap, you

get yellow.

Where red and blue overlap, you get magenta.

And of course, blue and green is cyan.

And white appears when all three channels overlap.

So, as you can see, all of these

sections over here.

So, what we'll do at times is actually

remove the RGB histogram to reveal just the

exposure part of it, and that'll actually help

us even further.

So, what we have to do, guys, it

depends on how you've actually photographed.

As far as I'm concerned, I prefer to

look at the back of the camera, or

in my case, because I'm shooting mirrorless, I'm

looking in the viewfinder, and I am seeing

detail in the highlights and detail in the

skin tones.

Of course, the brightest part of an image

of a person usually should be of that

person's face.

Then, that is where the detail should be,

and everything will take care of itself.

See, in the film days, you would expose

for shadows, develop for the highlights, and with

digital and transparency, for that matter, it's a

very different scenario.

So, what we're trying to do here, guys,

is get detail in the brightest highlight in

the face.

And once you do that, or the dress,

they both take care of each other.

Does that make sense?

So, here we've got out-of-camera exposure.

Yes, she's a little bit shiny.

That doesn't mean that this is a bad

exposure, nor does it mean it's a bad

exposure if we have a deep shadow on

her face.

Of course, if you remember, this is actually

photographing in full sun.

So, what I want to do now is

let's flick this.

You can see we can actually go to

black and white, and if you look at

these points here, the levels of brightness will

be revealed.

But I'm going to click my picker here.

Now, do you see where my mouse is

going, the little picker?

And as we're doing that, you've got those

levels of brightness.

It's giving us like that 25.

Do you see how that's very, very dark?

It's not exactly black.

It's not zero.

Zero is black.

No detail.

It's pure black.

If we go to the highlights, you'll start

to see where it's getting closer to that

255 back.

So, let's see if I've actually blown out

anything.

I'm just trying to see.

As soon as we get the 255, let's

look at that area.

No, let me put my glasses on, actually.

I can see this a lot better.

So, it looks like we have pretty much

detail everywhere.

Now, you might say, Jerry, well, why don't

I just shoot aperture priority in and then

hope for the best, and then I can

just get detail in my shadows and highlights

and things like that.

Well, of course you can.

You can get more details in shadows only.

You can lift up the mid-tones and

all that kind of stuff.

But can you see how we're starting to

lose a bit of detail and we get

a lot of grain?

So, nothing beats an in-camera good exposure

rather than just trying to do it after

the fact.

Excuse my dog barking in the background there.

He's probably missing daddy there.

But again, this is a good exposure.

We have detail in skin tones.

We have detail in highlights.

Life is good.

Let's go down a little bit further.

This one here of Lisa and Dylan, I

love the way the light is skimming off

Dylan there.

We've got beautiful highlights over there as well,

deep shadows, but you can see quite clearly

the detail in them.

But again, if you want to increase the

exposure, you can, but of course you're going

to blow out the highlights.

So, if you expose well, that exposure slider

will hardly be touched.

You might just want to put some detail

in those shadows.

Personally, I love deep, dark shadows.

It gives us beautiful depth and dimension and

drama.

It's one of the signatures to my work,

which I really love.

Let's just keep on going down and find

some different shots here as well.

So again, I love the fact that we're

playing with shadows.

Those half shadows underneath a guy's eyes, very

masculine, looks good.

I wouldn't do that for a girl, so

I make sure her eye sock is completely

lit.

Love the shadow on her lips.

It makes her lips look fuller, as well

as the shadow underneath her top lip, which

is amazing.

Now, let's go to this.

This is going to be almost impossible to

get a perfect exposure, short of actually using

off-camera flash, balancing that light that's hitting

behind her veil and so on.

Now, let's put our little picker here.

So again, let's look at the RGB there.

So again, although I'm going to flick it

to black and white, it still gives us

the luminance values from 0 to 255.

So if you can sort of see there,

well, there's some mid-tones, right?

Mid-tones, it's going a bit darker.

As you can see, it's going darker and

darker.

Now, let's put it on the veil.

All right.

Do you see how it's 255?

We actually got some clipping.

What that basically means, clipping means that if

you go to the end here, like you

want to contain usually your histogram within this

way.

You do not want this particular part of

the mountain, so to speak, to clip and

to hit that side of the histogram.

Remember, shadows, highlights.

Remember, like you're shushing someone.

That makes you remember that the shadows are

on the left and the highlights on the

right.

Now, does this make this a disposable photograph?

This is a bad photograph.

Do I just get rid of it?

Well, as far as I'm concerned, I eliminated

distraction by cropping closer.

Yes, these are white and bright.

If I exposed for the highlight here, in

other words, I want detail in that veil.

Well, of course, that light is going to

be nowhere near as beautiful because we actually

use light, the sun bouncing off a wall,

hitting her face.

Now, yes, if you entered into this competition,

photographers would say, well, there's no detail on

the highlights.

That's terrible.

Well, don't forget that most of the time,

guys, well, most of the time we should

be photographing for our clients.

We're not there to actually photograph for other

photographers.

So just know what you're shooting for.

And yes, if you want to be more

critical and actually make sure that the judges

in a competition say, well, this is a

perfect exposure.

Well, is there such a thing as a

perfect exposure?

I believe a perfect exposure is pretty much

the execution of your desired result.

In this case, I'm picking the lesser of

the evils.

I don't care about the detail here.

All I care about is her face looking

amazing and having a beautiful direction of light.

Now, can I get detail in shadows?

You see how I'm going over here now

that looks a little bit fake.

You can sort of see what's happening on

the on the fringe of that highlight there.

I would probably say you can certainly do

that.

That actually looks pretty good.

But then I would massage this in Photoshop

later on so I don't get that unrealistic

sort of glow that's on the outside.

So you can see, of course, that the

the latitude that we have when it comes

to digital processing after the fact is just

it makes our life so much easier.

But I'm saying don't rely on it because

the quality will never be as good and

compared to a good exposure in camera under

the circumstances and what you're photographing.

So, like I said, we've got no no

detail on those whites, but we can bring

it back.

And that's quite amazing that we can do

that.

Let's keep on going here.

So and these are just, you know, beautiful

images.

Let's see if we've got detail here, what

we're looking, what we don't want to see

in this particular part of the histogram.

We don't want to see a luminance value

of two hundred and fifty five.

Now, yes, we are shooting white.

See, we're sort of getting there, but we

still see detail.

But if you look at her face and

look at those mid tones, then we've also

got detail over here as well.

Now here, if it was completely dark and

no detail, this would be zero.

So you can see this histogram and this

beautiful peaks and there's beautiful valleys and it

crosses over.

And again, let's go to black and white

so we can just see the actual exposure

histogram, ignoring the color into it.

Now, so your histogram should not always go

up and always go down.

This is basically just little peaks and valleys

of different tones in the image.

And you can see how it tapers off

over here.

And it tapers off over here, which basically

technically means we got a good exposure.

But ignoring the histogram, we do have a

good exposure because it's exactly what we want.

Now, let me give you a more polarizing

shot that arguably you would say is bordering

on no detail.

OK, so here we have Dylan.

He's just sort of squatting down.

We've got a deep, dark shadow.

Let's have a look and see if we

have any kind of detail there.

And again, if we don't, this would be

zero.

So I'm moving the color picker all around.

But you can see how those values are

not actually clipping.

They're not getting to the zero.

Now, if you look at the histogram there,

you can see how it falls short just

of extending out on the left hand side.

And of course, it comes back over here

as well.

Now, yes, you can move this up and

down so you can see the blacks.

I'm getting the blacks and moving them.

And you see that slider moving this way.

Now, if I do it this way, you'll

see that the whites are getting we're changing

the value of those whites as well.

And then, of course, we've got the mid

tones that we can that we can use.

So you can see how there's five sections

that we can play with five parts of

that image.

You've got the shadows, the highlights, and then

you've got the mid tones representing in those

three panels.

Now, let's go a little bit further here

because I want to show you this shot.

OK, so this one, if you look at

that histogram, let's take out that RGB.

That looks like a terrible histogram.

If you did not look at that photograph

and all you saw was that histogram on

the back of the camera, someone would say

that's a terrible exposure.

You've underexposed it.

It's terrible because we said shadows, highlights.

We've got highlights and not even going to

the end, which means there's nothing white in

this image or nothing close to it.

So we don't have that full range.

And then we've got those shadows clipping, which

basically means that there's going to be points

to this image where we will get zero.

So there we've got one.

There we go.

We've got zero just there.

There we go.

It's completely black.

There's no detail.

Guys, what I'm saying to you is this

is a good exposure because that's the desired

effect that I wanted.

So, yes, you can be like me.

And I look at the back of the

camera or in my case, because I shoot

mirrorless, I'm looking in the viewfinder and I've

learned to see what a good exposure looks

like in my camera.

I rely on that.

And as you can see, all my exposures

are good for my desired result.

And there's nothing there's no there's no shot

here, for example, where I'm like, you know

what, I didn't nail it in camera.

Now, look at this shot, for example.

We turn the body away from the light

source, turn the face back in.

We've got detail in those highlights.

You know, obviously, we've got shadow highlights, shadow

highlights.

We've got detail basically here.

We've got detail in those dark tones.

And life is pretty good there.

Now, I can increase the mid tones.

I can give us more detail and highlights.

That just depends on your style.

It depends on what you like.

There is no perfect histogram.

We have to say that again.

Now, let's just talk about this for a

moment.

If you look into the camera, let's say

you don't have mirrorless.

Let's say you have to look at the

back of the camera and determine a good

exposure from what you're seeing.

Well, it's like watching TV.

If you watch TV indoors, if we're watching

a TV indoors, there's going to be a

certain kind of saturation and contrast that we

see because we're looking at TV indoor with

no sun hitting the TV.

Therefore, it's contrasty and it looks good.

But what happens when you watch TV outdoors

in full sun?

Well, that's no different than actually getting a

flurry day as sun's flaring.

You know, you may be like me where

you have to wear glasses to see up

close.

And it's like, well, I don't know.

I can't I can't even see the detail.

I don't know what it is.

I don't have mirrorless.

I don't know what's going on.

Well, you might want to rely on the

histogram.

But again, I've proven to you that a

histogram based upon your desired result like this

one is actually going to look the histograms

going to look terrible.

Now, can I resurrect some detail if I

wanted to?

Well, let's see.

Let's go back to color.

And it'll freak you out that this can

happen, but you can actually resurrect the detail.

That was a silhouette.

Look at that five stops difference of exposure.

Now, yes, what happens is that if you

don't know the exposure in camera, you are

going to get terrible quality, bad.

You're going to get this grain effect.

You're going to get this this this weird

tones in the in the photograph.

So I'm saying to you, don't just shoot

aperture priority and hope for the best, because

that is not going to work a lot

of the time, because the minute you have

a bride and a groom.

So you got black suit, white dress, and

then all of a sudden we've got this

white wall.

The camera is going to basically see a

lot of white, a bit more white here

and a bit of black.

It'll pretend like it's a paint bucket.

It'll mix that paint in if you're actually

photographing with matrix or evaluative metering where you're

evaluating the whole scene, and then it's going

to actually make that like a light gray.

If the camera sees light gray, it wants

mid gray, therefore underexposing the photograph.

What you have to know is when you

look at an image like that, you have

to know that you have to technically well,

you have to overexpose.

And I say that inverted commas because you

are exposing correctly.

But not by what the camera is saying,

which means that you have to either with

your ISO, your aperture or your shutter speed,

you have to move the dial, your exposure

compensation.

However you want to get there, you have

to lean towards the plus sign, because in

the camera we have minus, we have plus,

we have zero.

Plus represents overexposing, minus represents underexposing, zero represents

a good exposure.

So like I said, the good way of

remembering it is if your subject matter is

bright, you go bright, lean towards the plus.

If your subject matter is dark, lean towards

a dark, as in with one of your

either your ISO, your shutter speed or your

aperture.

So again, guys, that you can read the

histogram if you wish.

It really depends on what you prefer.

But if you read the back of the

camera, it's very, very important that you have

to determine what that exposure looks like indoors,

outdoors.

And also you might find, well, Jerry, I'm

looking at the back of the screen and

the exposure looked perfect.

And I don't know why when I look

at my photographs on a calibrated monitor, I

wonder why my exposure is different.

Well, your screen in the back of the

camera could be too dark or too light.

Not all cameras and LCD screens are created

equal.

So what you want to do when you

first get a camera is photograph some different

subject matter, what you believe to be a

good exposure.

In my case, I don't really I don't

really worry about the histogram, although I know

what it means and I know what it

reads.

But the way I shoot, I shoot very

dramatic highlights and deep shadows and things like

that.

So my histograms are not going to always

look that great.

So what I suggest you do is when

you first get a camera, learn what a

good exposure looks like in the back of

the camera.

And that'll be just do a couple of

shots, shoot a friend, shoot, shoot a partner,

whatever.

Then now you know what a good exposure

looks like on the back of the camera,

on the back of the camera, outdoors, indoors,

you name it.

Then you load it on your computer.

Make sure you have a calibrated monitor.

In other words, what you see here in

this monitor is what you get in print.

Then bring up a photograph and then put

that same photograph, put the card back in

the camera and compare your screen with a

calibrated screen.

You might find your screen is too dark.

Go into your camera manual on your settings,

increase the brightness.

And now what you see on the back

of the screen is what you get.

That's why mirrorless is so good, because you've

got a built in loop where you can

shield away all the sunlight coming through all

that crap and just look at that exposure.

What I'm looking for, I'm looking for detail

in the whites.

I'm looking for detail on the skin.

The skin is my first guide.

Then I glance down and I make sure

I see detail.

Now, you might be saying, well, Jerry, what

do I do with, say, African-American skin

or I've got an African-American groom, maybe,

and then maybe a Caucasian bride?

The biggest problem is that most of the

time most photographers who get that exposure wrong

is you're trying to make the African-American

skin look Caucasian and get all this detail

in those in the dark skin.

I'm saying you can get detail.

What I do is I let the Caucasian

person be my guide for my exposure.

And I'm telling you, the rest will take

care of itself.

You're overthinking it.

And, of course, after the fact, whether it's

in camera raw, whether it's in Lightroom, whether

it's in Capture One, of course, you can

increase that detail in those shadow areas and

all that kind of stuff.

But you can sort of see how, again,

you know, we've got detail there.

You can see how this exposure is just

going to go to black and white here.

You can see how it's just going short

of clipping.

And then you can sort of see how

those highlights are there as well.

So this is a good histogram by the

nature of what I'm actually doing.

I just enjoy the ride, guys, like now

here, 100 percent, we are going to get

clipping.

So we're going to basically see, let's go

look right in the candles at 255.

We've got no detail.

It's a light source.

You are not going to get detail there.

It's pure white, because if we are exposing

for the result of that light, how would

we expect detail in that candlelight?

I mean, it's glorified fire, right?

Now, if we look over here, we are

going to get values of zero.

There we go.

We've got ones, ones, ones.

Can we find the zero somewhere?

No.

Surely it'd be somewhere here.

No.

OK, there we go.

But there you have it, guys.

First of all, that is the way you

read a histogram.

You can go, you can get all geeky

about it and all that kind of stuff.

And if you want it as a guide,

you can certainly look at your camera, your

camera settings and press the display where your

histogram is there.

But just know there is no perfect histogram.

The histogram will be based upon what you're

photographing.

Like I said, with me, I prefer deep,

dark shadows.

I'm not I don't really care about perfect

detail in shadows on every single photograph.

I expose for the highlights, as in I

want detail in the highlights on the face

and the dress.

In this case, we're talking about a wedding

and the rest will take care of itself.

So don't overthink it.

But just remember, the camera can't think like

a human.

Always remember to think of the complete opposites.

And it makes you understand.

So let's go over those one more time.

If you photograph four African-American men wearing

a black suit leaning on a black wall

and you were to photograph aperture priority, the

camera sees black and says, I don't like

black.

It'll make it me great, therefore overexpose.

And we showed you in our demonstration that

if you've got something black, a black suit,

then we said that you have to actually

underexpose.

And I say that again, inverted commas, because

we are not underexposing or exposing correctly, but

we are underexposing by what the camera is

saying up to five to six clicks.

And I say clicks as in third stop

increments, which means that we are one one

and two thirds up to two stops under.

So let's remember we said if something is

dark, you go dark, lean towards the minus.

So you either use your aperture, your shutter

speed or your ISO or a combination.

So you lean towards the minus with your

compensation or you just use exposure compensation like

plus and minus, depending on how you like

to shoot.

So you can shoot aperture priority and use

your compensation.

But just know you shoot a black subject.

You are going to have to underexpose because

the camera is seeing black and it's not

racist.

It doesn't care about black or white.

It just wants mid gray.

It has to it has to have a

standard.

If you're photographing a pale skinned bride wearing

a white dress, leaning on a white wall,

the camera sees white.

It doesn't like white.

It again, if you rely on the on

the exposure mode, whether you're shooting on manual

or aperture priority and you move one of

those dials that you determine your exposure, you

move it to zero.

You are going to make what was once

white into gray, mid gray.

So what did we say?

How do we go from mid gray to

white and detail in those whites?

Well, we said it's going to be about

one to two stops.

I find it's one to two third stops

difference.

And now what's in between?

If you're photographing a mountain range and it's

a dark mountain, you've got to be a

sunset.

You get a bit of light coming through.

You get some light hitting your subjects.

You've got some clouds.

So now you've got the blue sky, which

is a dark gray sky.

Now you've got the clouds.

That's white.

You've got the dark mountains.

That's a dark gray.

You've got the skin tones.

That's a light gray.

Now mix those tones in.

It may not be polarizingly black or white.

It might be, say, a dark gray.

So here's what you do.

The camera is going to make it mid

gray.

But you want to go back to where

you started to basically get detail in those

highlights.

And again, the rest will take care of

itself.

So if we're thinking, you know what, if

black is about one to two thirds to

two stops difference from black to mid gray.

And therefore we have to do that, then

maybe a dark gray might be one stop.

Does that make sense?

So once you understand those extremes, the in

-between becomes easy.

So when you're in your environment and you

take a shot and have a look at

the back of the camera and you know

that you're about one click out, as in

one third stop increment out of your exposure.

And you need to either under or overexpose

deliberately by what the camera is saying.

Take that shot.

Done.

Shoot that whole scene in that environment.

You're done.

If you shoot with aperture priority with one

subject and the minute you widen your angle

of view, you start to get your exposure

changes with every element that is added into

that photograph.

But you just want that skin to be

beautiful, that white dress to be beautiful.

So that's what I'm saying is shooting manually

is going to be more consistent.

And when you're converting your files, for example.

So when you're correcting your files, if you

shoot aperture priority, you'll find your exposures are

spiking.

They're going forward and back just by shooting

that one scene.

Here's the thing.

If you shoot manual and you forget to

actually fix your exposure after you've tested it

originally and something's happened.

Let's say you've got a chunk of 50

photographs that are over or underexposed.

Well, guess what?

You can globally grab them and globally fix

them with a couple of clicks.

If it was aperture priority, you would have

to literally go into every image, every two

or three images and change the exposure.

That is a pain in the butt.

So make your life easy.

Understand what the camera is doing.

Understand exposure.

Certainly, you might want to understand the techniques

of a histogram.

But when we mash that all in, this

should be no different to a calculator to

an accountant.

Know your craft.

Know the tool of your trade.

Exposure should be the last thing you care

about.

You should be worrying about connecting with your

clients, your creativity and just getting the job

done.

Hope you enjoyed that.

Hopefully that was one of the easiest ways

you've ever been explained about how to expose

correctly.

Enjoy guys and practice.