Hiding Specular Highlight Warnings
Mar 17, 2023 09:14:21 #
Nikon's Highlight Weighted Metering can lead to exposures that seem darker than necessary. Careful use of Zebra warnings in Sony can have the same result.
Specular highlights can be misleading. They often happen when the sun or other bright light source is reflected from a shiny surface.
Capture One provides a simple work around (Lightroom and others may have a similar feature). The following example shows how to address it.
The "Before" image shows the correction with the Exposure and Shadow slider to get the image looking right. The highlight warnings indicate that these specular highlights are close to or above the JPEG limit of 255 even though the raw file shows that very few of them are actually at or beyond the raw limit - less than 0.05% of the pixels are actually blown out.
Using the Highlight slider in the High Dynamic Range tool can compromise the tonality and texture in the brighter areas. You may want to avoid this.
The "After" image shows the adjustment in the Levels panel that eliminates nearly all of the highlight warnings.
This adjustment has no visible effect on the image itself or on a print. The only reason to do this is to clarify whether the highlights might be a problem.
You could achieve the same result simply by turning off the highlight warnings but you would not learn anything by doing that.
Specular highlights can be misleading. They often happen when the sun or other bright light source is reflected from a shiny surface.
Capture One provides a simple work around (Lightroom and others may have a similar feature). The following example shows how to address it.
The "Before" image shows the correction with the Exposure and Shadow slider to get the image looking right. The highlight warnings indicate that these specular highlights are close to or above the JPEG limit of 255 even though the raw file shows that very few of them are actually at or beyond the raw limit - less than 0.05% of the pixels are actually blown out.
Using the Highlight slider in the High Dynamic Range tool can compromise the tonality and texture in the brighter areas. You may want to avoid this.
The "After" image shows the adjustment in the Levels panel that eliminates nearly all of the highlight warnings.
This adjustment has no visible effect on the image itself or on a print. The only reason to do this is to clarify whether the highlights might be a problem.
You could achieve the same result simply by turning off the highlight warnings but you would not learn anything by doing that.
Mar 18, 2023 11:31:24 #
What is "Nikon's Highlight Weighted Metering?" or did you mean metering highlights with center weighted metering. I am sure you know photographers in general do not meter specular highlights, on the contrary, avoid them.
When shooting digital we should meter from an important bright area. I do not use matrix, I use center weighted or spot metering and compensate the exposure to bring back the brightness in the image. I guess the majority here does the same.
Your original image is a very difficult image to photograph, unless the specular highlights are of no concern. I am almost sure you did this to show how to correct specular highlights. In your correction the bright areas became darker killing the brightness of your main subject. Please, do not misunderstand me, I just said this was a very difficult subject to photograph.
In my case I try to avoid those specular highlights whenever possible.
When shooting digital we should meter from an important bright area. I do not use matrix, I use center weighted or spot metering and compensate the exposure to bring back the brightness in the image. I guess the majority here does the same.
Your original image is a very difficult image to photograph, unless the specular highlights are of no concern. I am almost sure you did this to show how to correct specular highlights. In your correction the bright areas became darker killing the brightness of your main subject. Please, do not misunderstand me, I just said this was a very difficult subject to photograph.
In my case I try to avoid those specular highlights whenever possible.
Mar 18, 2023 13:15:30 #
camerapapi wrote:
What is "Nikon's Highlight Weighted Metering?" or did you mean metering highlights with center weighted metering. I am sure you know photographers in general do not meter specular highlights, on the contrary, avoid them. ...
Highlight Weighted Metering is a version of Matrix metering in which weight is applied to the highlights to prevent them from blowing out.
For more information see Highlight-Weighted Metering Mode. It's been around since at least the D810 and it's available in most if not all of the Z models.
Under some circumstances it can provide the same result as Matrix metering but in extreme cases it reacts to the highlights resulting in dark shadows. If there are enough specular highlights you may need to do some work in post to accommodate that.
Here is another example:
Notice that I overrode the exposure reduction and suppressed the specular highlight warnings
(Download)
Mar 18, 2023 16:51:19 #
I love it - and those must be really hearty souls sitting out there at this time of year 🤍🤍🤍🤍🤍
Mar 18, 2023 17:50:58 #
joecichjr wrote:
I love it - and those must be really hearty souls sitting out there at this time of year 🤍🤍🤍🤍🤍
Mid-sixties last Tuesday. They were dressed warmer than I was.
Mar 18, 2023 21:55:24 #
I have to admit that I was not familiar with that type of metering. My cameras are old, they do not have such a feature.
For many years my standard has been center weighted metering. When Nikon began to integrate spot metering in their cameras I began to use it. From what I understand this type of metering has been very successful for very bright subjects in motion. I do not photograph persons under a spotlight or bright subjects in motion although if I am confronted with one I would certainly take my meter reading from a middle tonality in the same light.
As I said, to compensate for the very bright subject the meter tends to underexpose. That implies making adjustments during editing.
Thank you for the lynk.
For many years my standard has been center weighted metering. When Nikon began to integrate spot metering in their cameras I began to use it. From what I understand this type of metering has been very successful for very bright subjects in motion. I do not photograph persons under a spotlight or bright subjects in motion although if I am confronted with one I would certainly take my meter reading from a middle tonality in the same light.
As I said, to compensate for the very bright subject the meter tends to underexpose. That implies making adjustments during editing.
Thank you for the lynk.
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