If you've just started with photography you may be content to leave your camera on auto and let it do the work for you. If, however, you are a bit more hands-on and long to tweak those manual settings, digital cameras have a tool that helps you perfect exposures time and time again.
Today we take a closer look at histograms for photography and how they can be helpful to photographers of all skill levels.
What Are Histograms in Photography?
A camera histogram is a graph that plots the tonal values of your image. It details the portions of your image found at various levels of brightness — ranging from black to white — and how much of each tone is being captured.
At the left of your histogram are the black tones, at the right are white, and mid-tones are found in the middle. The Y-axis tells you the amount of detail found at each tonality, so you can easily determine the dominant luminance in your image.
At the extreme left and right of the axis you find pure black and white — areas of the image where no detail is being captured. When you have large spikes at either end, this is known as clipping. While clipping is sometimes acceptable (small bright areas of sky or deep shadows), you generally want to avoid it where possible.
What Are Histograms Best Used For?
Histograms are especially useful for ensuring you capture a good exposure — an image that looks pleasing and is neither under- nor over-exposed (too dark or too light).
A histogram of a well-exposed image will show the majority of data evenly spaced in the middle of the graph. An under-exposed image will show most data bunched to the left, while an overexposed image will show data bunched to the right.
If this is your first experience with histograms it may take a while to understand them. After a while, however, a quick glance can provide plenty of information about an image, making it invaluable in the field.
Live Histograms vs Histograms in Editing
There are a few types of histograms you'll encounter in photography. Most modern digital cameras provide a live histogram in-camera, which you can use to view the information your sensor is capturing in real time, or to quickly check a recently captured image to see if your exposure is good or if you need to adjust your settings and re-shoot.
There are also histograms in Lightroom, Photoshop, and other photo editing software, so this important information can be viewed post-capture during the photo editing stage. It's particularly handy when processing RAW files, as you can use it to make any necessary exposure adjustments without affecting the integrity of your image.
By using a histogram while editing, you can move your exposure slider up or down based on actual data rather than judging by eye — ensuring your image is prepared to look great across all devices and in print, regardless of whether your monitor is properly calibrated.
Put Your Knowledge to Use
Now that you know how histograms work, you can start to truly put your understanding of the exposure triangle to good use, creating spectacular photographs in-camera. If you're ever stuck for inspiration or in need of photographic advice, stop by our photography blog.
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