Rod Clabaugh wrote:
Being somewhat new to photography I have a question. When it comes to taking photos how can you tell if a picture is under or overexposed? Isn’t a little subjective? I find the task of photo editing daunting because I’m not sure if I should change a picture or not. It really handcuffs me sometimes because I don’t want to ruin a photo.
Rod, I think it is slightly over-exposed. But just slightly. And over or under exposure really depends on how you feel about the image. In general, you never want to blow out important details. Some parts of the image can be blown out (no detail), and some part can be so black there is no detail. As long as they are not important parts of the image.
The reason I say it is a little over exposed because I think you more detail in the fur in the middle of the cat. As shown on my monitor, a little area has no detail. So I would have darkened the image a little, maybe half a stop or even a full stop.
But again, may I suggest that you go into your editing software and view the image with different exposure values. Start with it dark and then gradually lighten it up until you feel it is perfect. If the image imparts the feeling you want it to, then it is the perfect exposure for that image.
There is no absolutes here. Some responses from folks on UHH will tell you Expose To The Right on the Histogram. and that's fine for grabbing all the detail from the whites. On some photos, you will need to go into your editing software and reduce the exposure for you to get that FEELING that it is correct.
I used to think a good picture had good detail in the dark areas, good middle gray, and good light areas. That is not the case. You could have an image that is LOW KEY where most all of the image was dark, with a small amount of middle gray tones. So, in that case, Exposure To The Right (ETTR) would not provide the proper image.
Take your image of the cat and play with it in Photoshop or whatever editing software you have and see if darkening would provide a better mood to the image.
This may be a lot more response than you wanted, but again the bottom line is that You like the exposure you got. Don't worry about what other people think. If you think it's the proper exposure, that's all that matters.
And yes, it's a fine image as is, but I think it could be improved...
Stan