Histograms

[FlyingKiwiGirl]

Could someone point me in the direction of a tutorial on histograms please. I have done a couple of searches but keep getting 1001 other threads with histogram mentioned. My Sony's histogram is separated into 4 colours and while I get the gist of how it works I'd like to read a bit more detail. Thanks.

[SwissJon]

Color histogram - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

If you understand the basics of histograms, you can understand the colours contained therein.. Basically the separate colour channels are shown on your histogram, so if your overall histogram is correct, but you find that the histogram shows the magenta colour channel is all the way to the right, then that colour has become saturated, you can go to the colour mixer and desaturate that particular colour, which will pull it away from the right hand side..

Finding one colour is a lot higher than other colours means that that colour features a lot more in your picture.. It might be indicative of a colour cast, but it also ight be indicative that you have shot a green field or a blue ocean or red sunset and so on. Use it as an indication of what's shown, but use your eyes too.. Desaturating to remove the colour cast might make the picture look wierd, and you might be better off using the temperature slider instead.

[RichardTaylor]

Have you seen this two part tutorial?
I think it is pretty good.

Understanding Digital Camera Histograms: Tones and Contrast

[Biomech]

It's worth taking some photos just to look at your histogram, that way rather than just reading about it you can see it in effect. Take photo of something largely blue, something red, something green, something light, something dark and then compare them all

[SwissJon]

Originally Posted by Biomech

It's worth taking some photos just to look at your histogram, that way rather than just reading about it you can see it in effect. Take photo of something largely blue, something red, something green, something light, something dark and then compare them all

Excellent idea..

Then bump up the vibrance and saturation on them and see what happens to the histogram.. Then switch to HSL, Switch to Saturation and see what happens to the colours you in the Histogram. Then switch to luminance, and watch the Histogram.

[monstermum]

Swiss Jon...what is HSL?

[SwissJon]

In Lightroom, under develop settings, on the right hand side, just under Basic and Tone curve there is a place where you can change the Hue, Saturation and Luminance.

Hue determines the particular colour hue, so if you find your blues are coming out a bit too purpley, you can alter this, saturation determines the saturation of the colour, i.e. How strong the colour is. Luinance determines the brightness of the colour. The Saturation and Luminance work very similarly to the Saturation and Brightness sliders on the Basic panel, except on that particular colour, the hue works very sililarly to the whitebalance sliders, again, except on that individual colour.

[Tito87]

Originally Posted by SwissJon

In Lightroom, under develop settings, on the right hand side, just under Basic and Tone curve there is a place where you can change the Hue, Saturation and Luminance.

You can also find it in ACR

[Tito87]

Originally Posted by FlyingKiwiGirl

Could someone point me in the direction of a tutorial on histograms please. I have done a couple of searches but keep getting 1001 other threads with histogram mentioned. My Sony's histogram is separated into 4 colours and while I get the gist of how it works I'd like to read a bit more detail. Thanks.

Reading Histograms-- Part I

I never understood why people put so much emphasis on histograms. I honestly haven't bothered to ever look at one of mine.

You only need to be 10% smarter than the camera.

~Eric