Histogram – LR vs. in-camera

I had learned not to trust the in-camera histogram, especially regarding highlight clipping. Usually those areas turned out fine in LR.
Then I came across this article: Settings for an Accurate Histogram
It totally made sense, and I adjusted my camera's setting accordingly. While images now look even more flat on the internal screen, I get much less of those clipping warnings, and I can confirm that from examining the images in LR.
It certainly brings the in-camera histogram more in alignment with LR's.
Just wanted to pass this on for others.

martin-s wrote:
Then I came across this article: Settings for an Accurate Histogram
I would suggest you interpret the title of the article as "Settings for a *more* Accurate Histogram". No matter what settings you make in the camera you will still not see a histogram of the *raw* data.

Similar Messages

Histograms: luminosity or saturation?

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
I've been learning Photoshop for quite a while, I've done lots of tutorials and read a few books, but I can't find the answer to this simple thing: In the histogram palette menu there are red, green and blue histograms to give the saturation of those colors, and a luminosity histogram to give the overall ( greyscale) brightness. There is also an RGB option, presumably to give a composite version of the red, green and blue saturation.
In Levels, however we have the same thing, except there is no luminosity option, only RGB. But RGB in this case cannot be a composite of the three color channels, as we use it to adjust brightness and contrast; in other words it is presumably the same as Luminosity in the histogram palette. Despite this, when I do adjustments to an image the RGB histogram in Levels looks identical to the RGB histogram in the histogram palette. I'm obviously missing something, but I don't know what. Can anyone help?...I'm using PS 3 Extended.

On Sat, 11 Oct 2008 12:38:05 -0700, [email protected] wrote:
Good questions. It's no wonder that the histogram tool is a bit confusing,
since very little is said about it in the PS documentation. There are five
histogram "modes", RGB, red, green, blue, luminosity, and colors.
> 1) In the histogram Palette ( and indeed in Levels) do the color channel histograms
> represent luminosity ( which I take to be brightness) or color saturation? (These
> are presumably separate entities).
Speaking only of RGB images, the red, green, and blue channel histograms
are the first ones to sort out. They represent the number of values
(0-255) of each color channel. The Color histogram is a superimposed
display of red, green, and blue histograms. The absolute height of the
peaks in the histogram is determined by the height of the maximum peak, and
this is done on a per channel basks.
> 2)Does the black RGB histogram represent a composite of the 3 color
> channels( as I think you've said ) or the grey tonal values? If the
> former, why do we use it to adjust tones ie. make the image darker
> or lighter,increase contrast etc?
The black RGB histogram is a combined view of the histograms for each of
the three channels, however all the channels are vertically scaled by the
same amount, instead of being scaled individually per channel. This means
that the location of the peaks for each individual channel stays the same,
but that the height of each peak will be smaller for two of the channels.
> 3) What is the luminosity option for in the Histogram Palette and why is there not one in Levels?
Luminosity is calculated by taking the weighted sum of the red, green, and
blue values for each pixel. The weight is smaller for blue, since it is
the darkest color, and largest for green. This corresponds closely to the
histogram seen in many camera displays, and is the reason that clipping can
occur, but not show in the histogram.
> 4)In the channels palette, do the greyscale images for each channel represent colors,
> or are there really greyscale images behind each color channel?
Each channel is a grayscale image. For RGB, each image can be thought of
as providing a certain amount of red, green, or blue to the image.
> 5) Do Curves adjustments increase saturation or brightness ie. Luminosity.
Again, speaking only in RGB, Curves can increase saturation and luminosity
in a variety of ways, since saturation, hue, and luminosity information is
mixed together in each of the red, green, and blue channels. Many people
find that working in the Lab color mode is simpler, since the L channel
contains all the luminosity information, and a and b contain independent
color information. Try Lab - you might like it very much indeed.
> 6) Why is there a black channel in CMYK if each channel has its own greyscale image?
The black channel borrows data, more or less equally, from the C, M, and Y
images. This produces a fourth channel, called K, that provides excellent
control over shadows and textures. Since the CMY channels contain more
color information, they provide a very sensitive adjustment for color,
which is good for things like skin tone variation.
> As you can see, I am having problems understanding what precisely color channels
> are, and also what exactly histograms are telling us.
It takes a while for all of this to sink in, but it does not require a PhD.
Things like additive and subtractive color, and the idea that organizing
color data into different color models, such as RGB, Lab, HSB, and CMYK can
provide leverage.
> I realise this might be a tall order for a forum such as this but I would appreciate
> any help you can give.
I think it's important to work these things out from basic principles, as
you are doing. Grab a book by Dan Margulis, and some light bulbs will
start to turn on regarding the different color spaces.
BTW - histograms are a poor tool for color correction. If there are
problems with clipping or other issues, it is much better to look at the
individual channels of the image, rather than the histogram.

RAW image and preview dramatically different

I'm using Aperture 2.1 and am recently finding myself extremely unsatisfied with the rendering of my RAW images created with my Nikon D50.
I am shooting in just RAW (NEF) and sRGB, and am exposing for what I am seeing on the back of my camera. At times I use manual, and others I use the Program setting with a -1.3 exposure compensation since the camera leans too bright; I seem to recall everything exposing correctly until recently. But my memory is shoddy when it comes to how things previously appeared.
The preview before importing shows much the same image that I intended (exposure-wise), as does the quick preview for a second or so during the import process. Shortly after, my pictures all become dull and dark, lacking color and appearing about 2 stops underexposed.
I love photography, but am personally baffled by the issue of color profiles, RAW images JPEG previews, and all that jazz. Nothing seems to explain these adequately, which is why I'm reaching out to those more knowledgeable than me. I am unsure if it's my camera, Aperture, color spaces, or just settings within Aperture or my camera.
Once again, I want to say this is a recent problem, but it may just be that I only noticed recently.

I have exposed to the image on the LCD before and produced wonderful results. Or, at the very least, results that didn't drive me to post on a discussion board.
As per your questions:
--I use 4 different methods to determine how I am exposing my image. In Manual, I use the TTL metering chart in the viewfinder (usually exposing -0.7 to -1.3 so as to compensate for the tendency for the camera's meter to overexpose), the resulting image on the LCD, the histogram, and the in-camera highlights indicator (since, once again, it has a tendency to try and overexpose an image). In Priority modes, I use the camera's exposure compensation setting to set the compensation to -0.7 or -0.1. The resulting JPEG that I see in the pre-import thumbnails and the brief seconds during import are exactly the exposure I want, but when Aperture finishes importing, it's entirely too underexposed. And it's not just that-- the color seems to be worse than it would if it were just simple underexposure... it all feels grey.
-- I use matrix metering most of the time, with spot metering in the rare instance that requires more precise measurement than just tweaking the aperture or shutter up or down a stop or so. Snow or water pictures are a prime example.
Just so we're clear, I know how to use a camera. I know how to expose properly, and in the past year with my camera, I feel I've figured out its quirks. It takes a lot to drive me to discussion boards, as I usually figure out problems myself. But, since the lingo and strange things of digital photography (Color Space, EXIF data, RAW conversion engines, etc.) confuses me sometimes, I am looking for more human help. I haven't had this problem (or this dramatic of a problem) in the past.
The RAW images outside of the last couple of months seem fine (maybe having something to do with the fact that I upgraded to 2.1 from the 1.0 software about 6 months ago and am finally getting back to photography during my summer break). And the JPEGs that I am apparently exposing for are fine as well. It's just after Aperture imports the RAW file that I am having these problems.
Like I said, I want to continue to use RAW. I want it to work like I thought it was working in the past (that is, without major exposure headaches). But I want the image that I thought I was getting. So how do I make Aperture see the same (or nearly the same) image that I am seeing in the JPEG thumbnail? The difference is just too dramatic to pass it off as quirks and be okay with that. And no, at least as the photography part goes, I do not think it's a short between the floor and the camera.

Information in Histogram in Adobe Camera RAW

Since I capture my images in RAW, when I open them in Adobe Camera RAW (via Elements 11), what information is displayed in the image and the histogram I see?
Is it showing me the jpeg created in the camera? If so, the jpeg settings in my camera are not only important in viewing the LCD and the histogram in my camera at the time of capture. They would also be important in viewing my image when it first opens in Adobe Camera RAW.
Thanks for some input.
Mary Lou

I have an answer to this question supplied to me from a forum on www.luminous-landscape.com. It is as follows:
Re: Understanding Camera RAW article
« Reply #3 on: September 30, 2013, 05:20:22 PM »
Reply Quote
Quote from: mlfrost on September 30, 2013, 05:14:21 PM
Perhaps you can answer a related question on Camera RAW. When I open an image captured in RAW format, I see an image and histogram in Adobe Camera Raw. Am I correct in assuming that the opening image and histogram are created from the camera's jpeg settings?
No...Camera Raw rips the entire raw image and does a demosaic and application of ACR defaults to generate the preview and the histogram (which is displaying the resulting graph based on the output color space set in ACR Workflow Options). ACR doesn't use ANY settings from the camera's JPEG settings and the only thing that ACR uses from the raw file is white balance info and the ISO metadata...

Histogram inconsistencies with Camera profiles - Camera Raw

Hi,
I've been going nuts with this issue for a year now since Adobe released the camera profiles for Camera Raw. Something tells me this shouldn't be happening.
Well exposed pictures taken with the D300 show an inconsistent histogram in camera raw when using the Adobe camera profiles for the D300.
This is a shame because I prefer the colour rendering of the camera profiles to that of the adobe standard profile.
This is the problem:
With the D300 I get a correct histogram in Camera Raw only if I choose the ACR 4.4 or the Adobe Standard profile. By correct I mean with black and white points filled to the edge of the histogram.
If I choose the camera neutral, standard, portrait or vivid suddenly there's an empty area in the histogram's blacks. Effectively the black point has been shifted quite a bit and I need to push up the slider for blacks up to 30 or so to get the black point back to the right place. While with Adobe standard the blacks are correct at 0 or so. Check out the pics here below.
Is this normal behaviour, or is there something wrong in my settings?

Nice pic of brain Bill. Still, I would take it without any harsh light and rather use longer exposure with tripod. You can see some sort of light source in left bottom part of brain. I assume it was a flash gun or above by lamp. Then you may get much better result ;-)
Thanks. The shot was taken using the Nikon R1C1 closeup flash unit using the diffusers to help eliminate glare. With such specular sources, one must adjust the light sources carefully to avoid glare, but the only sure way to eliminate the glare is to use crossed polarizing filters. Still, the subject is short scale and one must set the white and black points.
Now, to discuss your posted shots. If anything, your posts confirm my initial assertion, since you are correcting post processing and not by changing exposure in the camera. The corrected images are from the same raw expsosures with postprocessing. By the way, if you post your screen shots as PNG, you will eliminate the artifacts around the text.
I put some links of images to explain my point since we still talk about something else. (cannot insert pics via adobe).
http://hajes.org/img/acr/cairngorn.jpg
Brilliant example of screwed up "I have been there" photography. Exposed not very well and at worst light possible. Must go there once again and fix my incompetence.
http://hajes.org/img/acr/cairngorn2.jpg
Cairngorn is short scale because of atmospheric haze. There is no way to correct that with in camera exposure, but you could have exposed more to the right. Nonetheless, you have captured the whole dynamic range of the scene and exposing to the right would only improve the signal:noise. You had to use the exposure and black slider to set the white and black points, which only confirms what I said in my previious posts.
somehow "fixed" previous image. just for fun and learn PS CS4.
http://hajes.org/img/acr/hrad.jpg
overexposed image at first glance by untrained eye.
Hrad is a high dynamic range scene with blown highlights. Your use of the exposure control to bring down the highlights darkens the rest of the image to an undesirable degree. It would have been better to use recovery to tame the highlights. A better approach might be to deveolp for the highlights and shadows separtely and merge the results as shown below. Again the correction is in postprocessing. There would be no way to do that with a camera exposure. The use of +1EV in ACR in HRAD3 only worsens the highlight clipping.
http://imagingpro.wordpress.com/2008/12/03/expanding-the-dynamic-range-of-a-single-raw-fil e/
http://hajes.org/img/acr/hrad2.jpg
same image with 1EV extra without of any detail loss. miracle of digital sensors.
http://hajes.org/img/acr/hrad3.jpg
final image. it is just for web, so no bother about burned sky...
http://hajes.org/img/acr/tunka.jpg
again, overexposed image at first glance by untrained eye. we don't care about clipped shell in the left middle of image. it is not main interest of pic...
http://hajes.org/img/acr/tunka2.jpg
..and we again get 0.50EV extra which corrects clipping.
I don't see any evidence of overexposure. The highlights are well short of clipping and the shot is grossly underexposed--not exposed sufficiently to the right. Nonetheless, the full dynamic range of the short scale scene has been captured and the shadows are well above clipping.
In case some will wonder about weird setting of ACR. It is just for web and I still don't know all tricks of PS. Furthermore, I prefer to spend time in nature rather than in front of computer.
The settings of ACR are indeed wierd. Thomas Knoll recommends setting the highlights with the expsoure slider and the midtones with brightness. An alternative way of doing this, introduced with Lightroom, would be to set the midtones with exposure and control the highlights with recovery. A black point setting would likely be required as well. Again, no way to do that with an in camera expsoure, validating my previous assertion.

Histogram LR vs Camera Raw

Why the histogram between Camera Raw and lightroom is different? When I make the black point and white point, the point of clipping, result different for the the same photo with same value.
Let me know
Thank's

Lh 5.7 and CR 8.7!!!! How you can see same value but different result on histogram clipping

Camera data. Histogram and light meter

I'm trying to find info on how to tap into data from the iPhone camera. I want to develop an app that uses histogram data and to build a light meter. Can anyone help me out?

You can build your own histogram from any image. I very highly doubt you'll be able to construct anything even remotely resembling an accurate light meter as the camera's driver and/or firmware most likely already has one that is continually making adjustments before you ever get any data at the application level.

Camera histogram vs LR histogram

I generally adjust dslr expose using the histogram on the camera (doesn't matter what kind), so that there are no or minimal blinkies.
Since LR3, I've noticed that I have a third to a half stop of exposure remaining to the right of the LR histogram.
Anyone else notice this, and if so, what are you doing about it?

This is standard. The histogram on the back of the camera is based on the JPEG preview the camera generates from the RAW file. The histogram in Lightroom, if you're shooting RAW, is based on the RAW file itself, and thus you're going to have some more headroom.
If you want it to be closer, adjust the JPEG settings in-camera to be as flat (low-contrast) as possible, and you may get a smidge more, but still, this is SOP and LR is behaving correctly.

Histogram handling of camera-generated DNG files

I'm using a Ricoh Caplio GX100 camera which produces generic DNG files. Is it because Aperture doesn't officially support this camera that the main histogram doesn't display the separate RGB channels, regardless whether set to Auto Levels Separate?

Dennis-H wrote:
Is there a utility that can verify the integrity of a suspect DNG file?
his page explaines how to do that usingAdobe DNG Converter:
http://www.dpbestflow.org/node/382

Using the histogram and RGB values in camera raw

This question was posted in response to the following article: http://help.adobe.com/en_US/photoshopelements/using/WS287f927bd30d4b1f5548d97812e28a69a90- 7ff4.html

K so no one has been able to help me. When I open a raw image all my highlighted areas are pink. I cannot turn it off by clicking the little triangle. I'm losing my mind. I've been trying to figure this out for months!

Performance issue with extreme data distribution using histogram

Hi
We have a performance stability issue which we later found out is cause by the bind variable and histogram for a particular column when it was use as part of equality predicate. Assume the column name is parent_id0.
There is also an index on parent_id0.
Our temporary workaround is to install the good plan when it is started.
This is on database 10.2.0.3. I have a table with 2570149 rows, there is one common value(value 0) that represent about 99.91% of the total rows.
When i do
select parent_id0, count(*)
from table1
group by parent_id0
order by parent_id0;
I'm getting 187 rows and i would assume to have 187 buckets to have a better representation. The first row have the count nearly to 99.91%. The rest rows are having count something like 1 or 2 or less than 200.
With the auto gather, Oracle came up with 5 bucket. When i check the sample size, i only see oracle uses 2.215% of all the total rows at that time.
Column name Endpoint num Endpoint value
PARENT_ID0     5,579     0
PARENT_ID0     5,582     153,486,811
PARENT_ID0     5,583     156,240,279
PARENT_ID0     5,584     163,081,173
PARENT_ID0     5,585     168,255,656
Is the problem due to the wrong sample size and hence the histogram is miscalculated.
When i trace the sql with 10053, i see something like this..seems like some value is not capture in the histogram.
Using prorated density: 3.9124e-07 of col #2 as selectivity of out-of-range value pred
What i need to do to have a correct and stable execution plan?
Thank you

Hi, its an OLTP environment.
The problem is this sql has 4 tables to join, table1 (2.5 mil rows), table2 (4 mil), table3 (4.6 mil) and table4 (20 mil)
By right, the table with the highest filter ratio is table1. However, from the plan, oracle is using table3 as the driving table. The moment i take away the parent_id0 as part of the predicate, Oracle choose the right driving table (table1).
Here is the sql structure
select ...
from table1, table2, table3, table4
where table1.id = :1 and table1.parent_id0 :=2
and ...
We have index on id column too.
From the application, the application will never pass in value 0 for the parent_id0. Therefore, we will be querying 0.09 percent all the time from that particular query.
p/s: i'm sorry that i'm not able to paste the exact sql text here

I've lost the histogram - and other adjustment woes

I filed a rather long description of this to the Aperture Feedback, but as I suspect that is a "write only" channel I thought I'd ask here (and I did review a bunch of posts with no luck)
I have a brand spanking new MacPro quad, with 2 NVIDIA GeForce 7300 GT video cards (I mention this only because of Aperture's use of GPUs).
In summary, I imported a project that works fine on my MacBook Pro, but on my MacPro the histogram in the adjustments HUD is gone. When I try to make an adjustment, a HUGE black triangle appears where the preview image was, the histogram magically appears, I make the adjustment (the slider is not smooth), a full second passes and the preview is updated with the adjustment -- and, of course, the histogram disappears. When the system is feeling particularly nasty, the preview comes up completely black after the adjustment (although the thumbnail appears to be updated properly).
Suffice it to say I've tried everything but yank out the RAM and the GPUs... I've seen this on some images in other projects. I created a new Aperture library and loaded some images (from different cameras) -- all exhibit this behavior. I've stopped and restarted Aperture. I've shutdown and restarted the MacPro. I've reverted my profiles for the displays to the Apple defaults. I've started considering moving to Lightroom...
Aperture is such a wonderful program when it works... I've had a bunch of minor issues with the program over the past year I've been using it - but this is insane.
If anyone can provide some clues as to how to fix this I'd appreciate it.
Thanks,
- dave
Note: A small update to my post. I thought the histogram had disappeared, but upon closer inspection it is there -- but it reads as if it were a completely black image (e.g., all of the values are in the first column). Another clue...
Message was edited by: davebets

I should mention that i have NOT upgraded to iOS 5 on the 3GS and don't want to. Therefore, no iCloud on the phone.

Adobe Bridge cs5 V 6.0 camera raw problem

Hey guys I went to correct a few photos I took recently, Like anyother time I do this I open bridge find the photo I want then click open in camera raw...here is a picture of the photo in bridge no problem,
When I go into camera raw this happens to every photo, this one shows it the best but each photo I try and edit has this effect where the contrast of the picture goes from low to high... this problem just occured today, I did not install any new programs or change any settings at all... Please help!

this one shows it the best but each photo I try and edit has this effect where the contrast of the picture goes from low to high... this problem just occured today,
I'm not sure what your problem is but I suppose you mean the red color in the sky? This is a warning sign for highlights exceeding the visible range, like the blue color indicates the same for blacks.
If you bring back exposure you will see the red color change as you can do with other sliders.
Top left and top right of your histogram in Camera Raw you see a black and a white triangle with a square around it. If you click on triangle the square disappears indicating the warning color is set to off.

Help with NEF files... blown out in Camera raw??

My Nef files look great until I use the magnify tool in bridge or open them in camera raw. Then all of sudden they instantly brighten and some of them look overexposed!! Please help... is there a default setting I need to change?? I'm using the Nikon d700 Adobe CS5.1

1) if you are doing a raw conversion using Adobe raw converters (ACR/LR) then you shall not be confused w/ embedded JPGs (written by camera's firmware in your raw files) that you might see temporarily while Adobe software renders some inital preview using your default raw conversion settings (you might change those, including default camera profiles = for Nikon cameras Adobe supplies a standard profile and some profiles to emulate OEM settings, exposure correction, etc)
2) you are are concerned that you in fact overexpose your raws (clipping in raw channels) then just download a free software = http://www.rawdigger.com/ and see the true raw histogramm (not jpeg based histogram that your camera shows), if your raw channels are not clipped then just dial negative expocorrection in ACR/LR and that is it... in most cases it is good to have raw histogram to be as close as possible (and sometimes even clip unimportant parts of the image - specular highlights for example are in many/most/all cases OK when clipped, because there no details for you in them) to clipping - because then you have a good signal to noise ratio for the most important parts of your image...

Camera Raw 5.5 problem?

I upgraded to Lightroom 2.5 yesterday (9/20/09), which includes an upgrade to Adobe Camera Raw 5.5. I started to see a purple artifact appear in highlights after making edits. (I haven't yet investigated enough to identify which editing tool triggers the artifact, or perhaps all of them.) Even when I revert History to the original Import step the purple artifact remains visible on screen.
I'm working with ORF files from the Olympus E-510. ORF is Olympus' RAW format.
When I use the 'Edit in' command in LR to open the same file in Photoshop CS4 11.0.1, with or without LR edits, the highlights artifact remains. LR instructed me to upgrade ACR to 5.5 in Photoshop, for compatibility with LR 2.5, which I did before opening the first file. When I later opened the same ORF file straight from PS, it contained the highlights artifact.
When I saved a JPG from LR, the artifact remained in the JPG file. Opening the JPG in Apple's Preview shows that the artifact is at the pixel level - it is there without using an Adobe product to view the image. Therefore the bug is not restricted to viewing images, but also to processing and saving images.
To test whether the ORF (RAW) file had been altered by LR, I opened it in LightZone 3.8. The highlights artifact is NOT present in the image processed by LightZone. Therefore the Adobe products did not alter the ORF (RAW) file. Because the artifact is present in two Adobe products that depend on ACR 5.5, the bug is probably in ACR 5.5. Perhaps in the calibration for the E-510?
I suspect the bug in ACR 5.5 is caused by improper normalization of the R, G and B channels at the bright end of the histogram, so that color balance is not retained when one channel is blown.
Crops of the LR/ACR 5.5 JPG image and the LightZone JPG can be seen at:
http://flipperty.smugmug.com/Photography/Adobe-Camera-Raw-55-bug/9696232_S7gJS#655241795_R zjVS

The same problem, but with different camera model (Sony) has been reported on Lightroom forum Eric Chan (Camera Raw engineer) is looking into it. You can read more at:
http://forums.adobe.com/thread/492281?tstart=30

Histogram – LR vs. in-camera

Similar Messages

Maybe you are looking for