Humpy Histograms!

[Bryan Kennett]

Evening all,
Having done some studying, especially frm ' The Missing Manual' for PS4, i thought I was doing quite well with tuning the histograms to fairky good effect.

However, Just recently I have produced shots in which the histogram consists of two distinct humps separated by a small space along the base axis. I have been unable to 'join' them up or get really satisfactory results.

This usually occurs when photographing aircraft, on the take off run as a rule. I use a Canon PS721IS and an Olympus SP500UZ.

Does anyone have any idea what causes it and what, if anything, I can do about it.

Incidentally, a few weeks ago I read about the Smart Curves download here, and promptly did; it works very well and has merged perfectly with PSE4.

Regards to all,

Bryan.

[TonyW]

That's pretty normal - the histogram is only what the camera has recorded and if there's a lot of light tones (the plane) on a dark background (the runway) then you'll have two peaks. If there are no mid-tones then there will be a gap and you wouldn't want to try and close it up.

Shadows/Highlights is the best tool for moving the ends in a bit to improve the balance. How well it works will depend on whether the camera has recorded detail at the ends - if the plane for example is overexposed so the highlights are blown out then you won't be able to recover anything with shadows/highlights.

Tony

[GaryK]

Or.. if you were taking pictures of a plane in the sky .. same histogram but opposite of Tony's example.. dark plane (left hump) white/light sky (right hump) not much in the middle.:D

[TonyW]

Gary - you're right! Kind of like this one of a stealth bomber (http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/f/f1/Valiant_Shield_-_B2_Stealth_bomber_from_Missouri_leads_ariel_forma tion.jpg/800px-Valiant_Shield_-_B2_Stealth_bomber_from_Missouri_leads_ariel_forma tion.jpg) . And that's what I got when one flew over here one time :D

Tony

[GaryK]

Tony

Very cool shot.. that could be a UFO under different conditions.:D

[Bryan Kennett]

Good afternoon all,

Thanks to Tony W and all who responded to my query, I have tried the shadows/highlight tool and have got much better results than before.

Not perfection parhaps, but highly satisfactory.

I am very grateful,

Regards to all,

Bryan:):):):)

[TonyW]

Bryan: Glad to hear that helped. Shadows/Highlights is a great tool and helps improve most photos. Works even better in PSE6 - not sure what they did (maybe tweaked the extra controls that are available in CS2/CS3) and it's pretty subtle but does work a little better.

Tony