NEW - Ken Gilbert

NATURE
€ SHALLOWS OF THE GREAT SALT LAKE, UT
To keep the high-key effect, the graph was placed
to the right side of the histogram. Same equipment
as previous spread; 1/250 sec at f/22, ISO 100.
Photoshop. Photoshop versions CS3 and higher
offer automated HDR blending, as do other
programs such as Photomatix Pro from HDRsoft.
With automated HDR, combining fi ve to nine
exposures taken at 2/3-stop intervals works well.
nFine-tuning tips
Expose to the right: Digital sensors can
distinguish between much fi ner variances in
highlights than in shadows, capturing more detail
on the right side of the histogram. And there’s
a greater risk of visible noise on the histogram’s
left, where an incorrect reading will be more
pronounced. So by exposing to push the curve
as far to the right side as possible, without going
over the edge, you can maximize detail while
minimizing noise.
When you do this, the image on the
camera’s LCD may seem much brighter than
you want, so you may need to fi x this later. I
highly recommend shooting RAW images and
correcting exposure during conversion. When
you shoot JPEGs, exposing to the right boosts
the risk of lost highlight detail.
Silhouettes and high-key images: You shouldn’t
always fi t both tails of the histogram neatly within
the horizontal axis—for instance, if you want
deep blacks or pure whites in the fi nal image.
For a silhouette, where the foreground object is
rendered completely black while the background
maintains detail, shift the exposure so that the
histogram is clipped on the left side but retains
detail throughout the rest of the range.
Conversely, when you want very bright objects
to appear pure white, allow the histogram to be
clipped on the right side. The image (bottom
left) of the sun rising through a foggy shroud is
a good example: Although a fairly large portion
“SUBWAY” POOLS IN ZION NATIONAL
PARK, UT Highlight and shadow detail could not
both be maintained in a single exposure. So two
exposures, one for the highlights (8 sec at f/16, ISO
100) and another for the shadows (25 sec at f/16),
were combined in Adobe Photoshop CS4, resulting
in the histogram shown. Tripod-mounted Canon
EOS 5D with 14–40mm f/4L Canon EF lens, with
circular polarizer to suppress water refl ections.
€ MORNING FOG, CARBON COUNTY, UT
In this instance, the histogram graph was allowed
to spill over on the right-hand (overexposure) side
to render the sun as a spectral highlight. Tripodmounted
Canon EOS 5D with 24–105mm f/4L Canon
EF lens; 1/250 sec at f/16, ISO 100.
26 POP PHOTO MAY 2009