Understanding & Using Histograms

[StillMrFitz]

Try this site for good info on histograms.

http://epaperpress.com/psphoto/index.html

Histograms are more useful before final scan or before exposure(with camera) then after the event.
As someone mentioned - your eyes can tell you that you have it wrong. You don't need a histogram for that.
Histograms can be used to correct (by-the-numbers) not the best way, but helpful.
As someone elso also mentioned - there is no such thing as accurate or perfect colour, unless you are matching two samples.
There are people who see colour differently with each eye. Go Figure - It must give them some special problems.

PFitz

[another view]

Thanks for posting, looks like a lot of good info.

I'll add that in my experience, I hear people talking about good and bad histograms but not in context with the final image that they're trying to get. Histograms are a very useful tool - but like when you're building a house, you need more than just a hammer to get the final result. Takes a lot of tools - and knowing what to do with the tools - to get the results you want.

I've heard it talked about like you're breaking a federal law to have a histogram cut off on one side or the other. For example, you can have a good image with a histogram all stacked up on the right - a night shot where you want the sky to be dark. Also, I photographed a well-lit memorial at dusk the other night, and had the right side of the histogram clipped just a little bit - due to the lights on it. To bring that back, I'd have to underexpose several stops. If I tried to get the shadow detail back, I'd wind up with a horrible grainy (noisy) image! OK, enough with the pet peeve...