An introduction to histograms (a video)
Understanding histograms is the key to getting a good exposure in digital photography. In this podcast, I walk you through the basics of the histogram. I show images of histograms (and scenes I have photographed.) Understanding histograms is the key to mastering exposure, which is at the heart of good photography.
4 responses to “An introduction to histograms (a video)”
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Hi david-
I was in your class in SF. Just watched the Histogram podcast- very well done, very helpful. I had researched 2 other “articles” on the web today recommended on the “ugly headgehog ” newsletter.
Yours was the clearest and the best.
Many thanks,
Stan Adler
Hi David,
I’m afraid I need to improve in maths expertise to follow your explanation deeper.
How do you establish 25% are located to the left of the middle grey point and 75% are on the right side.
Many thanks,
Carlos Cubau
Fair question. If any one color is made up of Red and Green and Blue then on the left of the mid point you have to add up all the combinations of tones starting with 1 x 1 x 1 all the way up to 128 x 128 x 128 including all the variations in between such as 1R x 2 G x 110 B for example. If you do the same thing from 129 x 129 x 129 up to 256 x 256 x 256 with all the combos in between you get many more total tonal possibilities. Hope that helps.
Hi David,
I’m 95% confident that you are showing 4 pixels in the “one pixel” slide. RGB values for each pixel are determined by interpolating from the nearest pixels of the color channel, so in the red pixel, R is the value read by that pixel, but G and B come from the nearest G and B neighbors, respectively.
Peter