Understanding Histograms by Example

Have a look at the image below. You’ll see that it’s properly exposed, with a nice degree of contrast. The whites are white. The blacks are black, and there’s a good range of mid-tones in between.

Adobe Photoshop Tutorial - Understanding Histograms by Example - Fig. 1

Now take a look at the histogram in the bottom right corner of the above photo. It looks balanced in regards to what we should see in the photo-a few very dark areas, a few very white, and many middle values. Now, obviously, if you’re taking a photo of something that is very bright or very dark, your histogram will be skewed toward one direction or the other, but an average, well-shot photo is a good starting point to learn from.

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Added Monday, November 27th, 2006 at 8:41 am under Tips.