What should histogram photos look like

A low key scene is one that is dark, which you would expect when photographing at night. In this case, your histogram will be stacked up on the left side. You may have a spike on the left edge, which indicates solid blacks. A low key or dark scene will have mostly tones on the left side of the histogram.

Histogram for the image above showing a dark scene. A high contrast scene is one where there are lots of very dark, and very bright tones, and perhaps not so many tones in between. In this case, your histogram will show data on the left and right, and not so much in the middle. High contrast scene. Extreme brights and extreme darks with little in the middle. A low contrast scene has a lot of mid-tones, and few and bright tones.

Your histogram will have a bell shape. Exposing to the right, but being sure not to clip the highlights, results in images which are less noisy, have greater dynamic range, a higher signal-to-noise ratio, and better colors. RAW is a lossless file format which keeps all of the information captured by your sensor. By comparison, the JPEG format compresses the sensor information, throwing away detail which you can never get back.

This keeps the image file size small but at the expense of image quality. As the price of memory and storage falls constantly, image file sizes are less important. So, always shoot RAW if your camera allows it. Exposing to the right involves making the image brighter. There are several ways to do this in-camera.

Refer to the exposure triangle to discover how to adjust aperture , shutter speed , and ISO for a brighter image. Keep the ISO as low as it will go. Only make changes to aperture or shutter speed. Be aware that changes to shutter speed might introduce camera shake. If you choose to use a slower shutter speed, consider using a tripod and timer for best results.

This allows you to increase or decrease the exposure in small increments. Out of these cookies, the cookies that are categorized as necessary are stored on your browser as they are essential for the working of basic functionalities of the website.

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Copy Link. Powered by Social Snap. Photo by: 'Tony Webster, Wikimedia Commons'. While your LCD can give you a reasonably good interpretation of the image, it is far from perfect when determining how correct the exposure is. Besides that, the LCD screen has a much lower resolution than the image itself and the brightness level of the screen may be adjusted too brightly or too dimly to give an accurate interpretation.

This is especially important to remember when shooting in very bright or dark conditions. For example, when shooting the Northern Lights, while looking at the screen in these dark conditions, it might seem that the picture on the back of your LCD is correctly exposed, however, this is misleading. The reason that this occurs is due to the way our eyes adjust according to the viewing conditions.

In this case, when viewing the picture it in the dark, it will look much brighter than it actually is. There are a number of ways to implement your new understanding of the histogram into your workflow. First of all, most modern cameras have an ability to represent the histogram on an LCD screen even before making a shot — through the live view mode. This way, you can adjust your exposure exactly, even before you take a shot.

Ideally, I would suggest that you make a habit of checking the histogram after each shot. If that sounds too tedious, then you can at least use the ''highlight alert'' function that is built into the camera. Once your shot is taken, it is possible to view the image and to allow the camera to detect if there are any areas that are overexposed.

Additionally, you can also use your knowledge of the histogram while making adjustments to an image during post processing. Increasing or decreasing the brightness during post processing may result in the loss of pixels. Monitor the histogram using software during post-processing.

Photo by: 'Pexels'. I hope that this article has helped you to understand the basic principles behind the histogram and that with time, you will be able to incorporate this knowledge into your workflow and ultimately improve upon your own photography. By having this extra tool in your possession, you will be able to capture these magnificent scenes much better, which will certainly come in very handy.

About the author: Kaspars Dzenis is a landscape photographer based in Iceland. You can find more of his work on his website or by following him on Facebook and Instagram. Learn all about histograms in-field and on-location in Iceland. Join one of our workshops to improve your landscape photography skills in no time! Book Photo Tours. Explore Articles. Contact Us. Book your trip now. Iceland Photo Tours. Understanding Histograms in Landscape Photography.