When you hear the term 'high-res' thrown about with such abandon when it comes to images for web use, have you ever stopped to think just how big or how high quality and image meant for the web needs to be?
There's an assumption that high-contrast images are more dynamic, more compelling, more inviting. Have a go at some low-contrast photography. You might surprise yourself with the results.
Balance doesn't mean symmetry; it means an internal consistency and tension within your photos. And it's a vital element of composition.
Great photos might be down to a little bit of luck, but most of that 'luck' you make yourself. Don't believe us? Read on...
For all that our cameras are capable of rendering the world in glorious Technicolor, their light meters are remarkably simple: they can only 'see' in shades of grey. When a light meter attempts to judge the correct exposure for a scene, it does so under the assumption that the scene's average brightness is middle grey (18% grey), which is exactly half-way between absolute black and bright white.
H is for histogram! This week's Photography Fundamentals installment explains the graph that you can draw up on your camera for each image, or appears in the top right corner of your workspace in Lightroom or Photoshop. What does it depict and how is it useful?
A histogram is a graph that shows the tonal range, or the distribution of brightness, of an image's pixels. On its X-axis it runs from black to white, 0 to 255. On its Y-axis it charts the number of pixels at any brightness value.
By looking at a histogram you'll have a feel for the exposure of an image. If the majority of the pixels are sitting in the left-hand side of the histogram, the image will have a lot of darker tones. An image with plenty of bright tones will have a histogram that's predominantly situated in the right-hand side.
There's no such thing as a perfect histogram. Instead, you need to use it as a tool to help you judge if you've exposed your image how you want it exposed. Sure, if your image has a histogram that's concentrated towards the left, it might be under-exposed. It might also be a low-key image with predominantly dark tones.
However, the majority of images will have histograms that peak around the centre, in the mid-tones, but taper out towards the blacks and the whites.
If you've any 'blown highlights' or catasrophically over-exposed pixels that are pure white and don't contain any detail, you'll see those peaking right up against the right-hand side. These are sometimes called 'clipped highlights'. You can expect to see some if you've the sun in the frame, or specular reflections on water or metal, so don't think that they're always a bad thing!
Histograms also indicate the contrast found in a scene, too. A narrow peak will mean a lower contrast image; a broader peak is indicative of an image with high contrast.
All dSLRs and EVIL cameras will have a histogram included in their menu functions; higher end compacts often have them, too. On my Canon it's just a case of viewing an image in playback and then hitting the Info button twice.
When you're editing, the histogram is usually in the top right corner of your screen, but it will depend on your programme, obviously.
Golden hour << Photography Fundamentals >> ISO
