Histogram is Nothing

There are many articles out in the web which explains Histogram in detail and technically as well. But this article is intended to demonstrate histogram in a simple way without going into in-depth technical details.

I have chosen a simple Black & White image to demonstrate it, because that is what the Histogram is fundamentally. Yes – “the graphical representation of luminescence level of each pixel in an any given image”.

Mountain and a waterfalls engulfed by mist.

Have a detailed look at the image, the top right portion of the image is covered by fog and it is bright. The bottom left of the image is covered by rocks and it is dark. Draw an imaginary diagonal line across the image from top left to bottom right. Now look again, it would be easy now to understand. The fog portion comes under whites and the rock portion comes under Blacks. Look at the respective Histogram below.

Histogram of the above photograph.

If you look at the photograph – almost the dark & light pixels are equal(quantity wise). Isn’t it.? Now look at the Histogram, isn’t the same data displayed here in the histogram clearly? The light pixels are on the right side of the histogram and the dark pixels are on the left side. That’s it. In between, the connecting pixels are mid tones, which you can again see it on the image as well. Across the diagonal line, the tones on both sides of the line will fall on mid tones except the top left of the image, where it will fall under blacks.

One more thing we have to understand is, any white area on the image will fall on the right side of the histogram, whereas blacks will always fall on the left side. For example, turn the image 180° horizontally. Now the fog will appear on your left side and rock on the right side but the histogram would remain the same.

The same photograph but flipped.

Hope this article clear your initial blocks towards understanding the histogram. For a detailed understanding of Histogram and why should one push the histogram towards right, I would recommend reading this article in dPS. In another article will discuss about types of Histogram.

Cheers and Happy photographing. 🙂

Y Processing.

As a photographer, it is not uncommon to come across these questions quite often; “Is post processing necessary?” “Why do you shoot in RAW and then convert it?” “Should I shoot in RAW or JPEG?” This blog post is trying to answer these questions about processing.

“A photograph is made in the camera, not in the computer”; while this statement remains true, in this digital era, a computer and camera go hand in hand. Processing (Computer) is all about bringing out the best from the RAW data (Picture in RAW format) your camera recorded. This is literally impossible with JPEG.

Before getting into the real subject, a basic knowledge of how your camera captures images in RAW and jpg, will make things easier.  Firstly, RAW is not an Image format; it is the data that is seen by the camera sensor which is recorded into the memory medium. jpg, however, is altogether different. The sensor sends all the RAW data to the processor and the processor converts it into jpg format with the preloaded instructions based on the time the image was captured and exposure value. The important part to be noted here is that the processor discards the rest of the data after converting it to jpg. Remember, the instructions preloaded by the manufacturers are not specific to the images; it is generic and every correction made by the processor on the image like sharpening and contrast, such as, are global and not local. And the reason you get a fairly neat image is because the instructions are based on 10000+ images shot by the various top photographers then across the globe.

This is the very first reason capturing a picture in RAW and post processing is important to bring out the best of the camera.

The second reason is the ability to process the image. Processing here includes White balance correction, exposure adjustment, contrast correction or boosting, correct to the true colors, sharpening, color cast correction etc. The extent to which one has to process the picture is entirely a personal choice. It is your picture, so you should define how it looks, and tweaking around with the above given parameters is acceptable, in all contexts.

It is very important to note that post processing and image manipulation are altogether different. I don’t consider manipulation as a part of photography processing. By manipulation I mean the inclusion or exclusion of some or more parts of the image. The reason one should not manipulate the image is that, I feel that he/she is an expert photoshoper but not a photographer.

Photography is an art form and processing is also part of that very art. Learn it; there are lots of websites out there. I use Light room for my all processing requirements with few plug-ins like Nik collection, Enfuse, Mogrify, The Fader etc. I strongly say that photography and processing is equally important task by its very nature.

I can very strongly vouch that Photography and post processing are equally important tasks, especially in today’s digital era of photography.

Again, all this is a personal choice. Kenrockwell, a very technically sound photographer takes his images in JPEG only. So the choice is entirely yours.

Keep clicking,

Cheers.