essential skills: digital photography in available light
Some cameras have a histogram function that will visually graph the spread of the pixels in the
image. This feature takes the guesswork out of determining whether your image is too fl at or
too contrasty. A bunching of pixels in the centre of the graph usually indicates a need for more
contrast, whereas a mass grouping at both ends requires a reduction in contrast.
Along with good exposure control, selecting the right contrast setting is critical if the greatest
amount of scene’s detail is to be recorded by the sensor and switching to manual contrast control
will ensure consistency across the full range of source images.What about RAW shooters?
It should be noted that image factors such as white balance and contrast are fi xed in the picture
when the format used for saving ‘in camera’ is JPEG or TIFF. This is the reason that it is essential
to fi ne tune these settings before commencing to record the image sequence. However this is
not the case when using the RAW format as the capture fi le type. One of the distinct advantages
of using this advanced format is that contrast and white balance can be adjusted (losslessly)
after capture.
During the process of converting the RAW image to an editable format, programs such as Adobe’s
Camera RAW provide the ability to make many changes to the original capture. Because of this
it is not as critical for RAW shooters to standardize and control the white balance and contrast
settings used when capturing. Instead time should be taken during the conversion process to
fi rstly adjust these settings to suit the range of images in the sequence and then to carefully
apply the same conversions settings to all the source fi les.RAW shooters can take advantage of the White Balance (a) and Contrast (b) adjustment options available in
conversion software like Adobe Camera RAW to fi ne tune their source captures