exposure/brightness

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lionofjudah

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hi
Lets say I've taken a photo as per exposure needed/shown by camera, general scene. Histogram looks good. When processing how do you decide if that exposure/brightness of photo is bang on or if you have to increase white/exposure levels a tad to make the photo look brighter? (screen is calibrated). Or is this rarely needed to be done if photo has been actually exposed perfectly? Or is it personal taste - to go a bit brighter?
 
•

The major point to take care of, at capture, is to protect
the highlights. Your histogram is your best tool for that.

Once in the RAW converter, I teach my students to go
in three steps…
  1. correct reading of the recorded data
  2. convert a mineral capture to an organic rendition
  3. (optional) introduce artistic intent.
This will avoid situations where a solution causes a new
problem… endless IMO.
 
Kodiak Qc said:
•

The major point to take care of, at capture, is to protect
the highlights. Your histogram is your best tool for that.

Once in the RAW converter, I teach my students to go
in three steps…
  1. correct reading of the recorded data
  2. convert a mineral capture to an organic rendition
  3. (optional) introduce artistic intent.
This will avoid situations where a solution causes a new
problem… endless IMO.
Click to expand...
What does number 5 mean? Genuinely don't understand, sorry for being thick
 
Kodiak Qc said:
2. convert a mineral capture to an organic rendition
Click to expand...


The sensor is made of minerals. It records data in given
ways that always needs tweaking so to give an image a
pleasing feel to it — usually achieved through tonal taming.
 
Kodiak Qc said:
•

[*]convert a mineral capture to an organic rendition
.
Click to expand...
mineral capture is what happens at the silicon based sensor, organic rendition is what the living person sets the image to.
 
john.margetts said:
mineral capture is what happens at the silicon based sensor, organic rendition is what the living person sets the image to.
Click to expand...

:ty:
I need an English teacher… :(
 
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Kodiak Qc said:
•

The major point to take care of, at capture, is to protect
the highlights. Your histogram is your best tool for that.

Once in the RAW converter, I teach my students to go
in three steps…
  1. correct reading of the recorded data
  2. convert a mineral capture to an organic rendition
  3. (optional) introduce artistic intent.
This will avoid situations where a solution causes a new
problem… endless IMO.
Click to expand...

thanks. could you please elaborate a bit more on points 1 & 2?
 
lionofjudah said:
could you please elaborate a bit more on points 1 & 2?
Click to expand...


Sure…
  1. the RAW file contains only two kinds of data, luminance
    and chrominance. The first point makes sure you read
    properly all the data… your image is hidden in there!
  2. Because of the nature of the sensor, data is recorded in
    a certain way that is so too pleasing to the eye. Tonal
    taming is the name of the tweaks to achieve what is
    called an organic rendition.
 
Kodiak Qc said:
Sure…
  1. the RAW file contains only two kinds of data, luminance
    and chrominance. The first point makes sure you read
    properly all the data… your image is hidden in there!
  2. Because of the nature of the sensor, data is recorded in
    a certain way that is so too pleasing to the eye. Tonal
    taming is the name of the tweaks to achieve what is
    called an organic rendition.
Click to expand...
thank you.
it does explain why a RAW image looks flat
but back to my original question - when adjusting how bright/popping an image looks - is it just personal preference? I could process 2 exact images taken minutes apart and sometimes prefer different brightness levels on them
 
lionofjudah said:
how bright/popping an image looks - is it just personal preference?
Click to expand...
Yes but only after reading the RAW data correctly, then
you may tweak it to your liking as in step two.

There is no magic in this but, when cooking, good taste
is an asset! :)
 
As I understand it exposure and brightness are two different things.

I don't know what software you are using but all my experience is with Lightroom. I imagine other sw has similar controls.

Exposure affects the whole image, from the highlights to the shadow areas. So as well as making the highlights "brighter" it will also open up the shadows by the same amount.

What i think you mean by "brightness" is controlled by the "whites" slider. I don't know the correct technical terms but this has the effect of making the image "pop" or "sunnier-looking", without affecting the shadows and blacks. It will also tend to blow out the highlights., so you compensate for this by using the highlight slider.

There is a similar relationship between the Blacks and shadows.

The contrast control has a similar result but does not allow the blacks to block up or the whites to blow out. Personally I prefer to use all four controls together, as described above.

i don't know if this is helpful?
 
jerry12953 said:
As I understand it exposure and brightness are two different things.

I don't know what software you are using but all my experience is with Lightroom. I imagine other sw has similar controls.

Exposure affects the whole image, from the highlights to the shadow areas. So as well as making the highlights "brighter" it will also open up the shadows by the same amount.

What i think you mean by "brightness" is controlled by the "whites" slider. I don't know the correct technical terms but this has the effect of making the image "pop" or "sunnier-looking", without affecting the shadows and blacks. It will also tend to blow out the highlights., so you compensate for this by using the highlight slider.

There is a similar relationship between the Blacks and shadows.

The contrast control has a similar result but does not allow the blacks to block up or the whites to blow out. Personally I prefer to use all four controls together, as described above.

i don't know if this is helpful?
Click to expand...

Thanks. You know exactly what I meant by "brightness". I do use Lightroom and yes was talking about the overall pop of the image.
 
Don't forget that, using Lightroom, holding down the "Alt" key when adjusting the White slider will give you a masked image in which you can see the exact point at which white clipping occurs.
Similarly for the Black adjustment.
More accurate than relying on the histogram.
It's acceptable to have a larger area of black clipped than it is to have large areas of clipped highlights.
 
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