Histogram help please (Page 4): Your original single exposure image cannot hold the range of light in the scene. It was night. Your image must have lots of black. Sunrise looks great...

davidcaley Loc: Utah

Your original single exposure image cannot hold the range of light in the scene. It was night. Your image must have lots of black. Sunrise looks great as it rises out of the dark. I agree with all the comments about your image, it only required a little cropping. If you collect in RAW much more data is available for ACR to shrink or extend your range.
You can adjust a single RAW exposure up and down two stops in ADC, saving all three (-2, 0, +2) as .tif and then use HDR software to combine the three and adjust accordingly.
I find presetting White Balance to Daylight for best colors.
Attached is stitched 8 images using no adjustments except a little Photomatix Single Image to open the light reflections on the driftwood lower left.

Hand held 8 image Panorama 7:30 AM Jan 24

bvargas Loc: Palm Harbor, Florida

Would HDR solve this problem?

mcveed Loc: Kelowna, British Columbia (between trips)

Without seeing the picture, I could tell from the histogram that the image had blocked up shadows. A significant percentage of your photo sites recorded no light. In photo jargon, your shadows are 'blocked up'. This is indicated by the large spike right up against the left side. If the histogram stopped short, and did not reach the right side at all, the photo would simply be underexposed. The problem is that if you simply increase the exposure the histogram will move to the right and you may get a spike on the right side which would indicate blown highlights (areas where the camera records a strength of 255 in all channels) with no detail recorded. In short, the dynamic range of the scene is beyond the capability of the camera. The solution is a graduated ND filter. No software can recover areas where no detail has been recorded, all they can do is superimpose a false colour on blown areas or remove intensity of blocked up areas and produce a uniform grey.

texaseve Loc: TX, NC and NH

Love the cobweb photo and edit!

mcveed Loc: Kelowna, British Columbia (between trips)

I just pulled your download into Aperture 3 to see if I could recover it. It looks like you have done some PP work before you posted the 'original'. There is a visible halo around the tree on the left. This is normally caused by messing about with software. Anything I did to enhance the image just emphasized the halo and ruined the image. But definitely the bottom 25% is totally blocked up. Better luck next time.

Gramps Loc: Republic of Tejas--Tomball, TX

mcveed wrote:

I just pulled your download into Aperture 3 to see if I could recover it. It looks like you have done some PP work before you posted the 'original'. There is a visible halo around the tree on the left. This is normally caused by messing about with software. Anything I did to enhance the image just emphasized the halo and ruined the image. But definitely the bottom 25% is totally blocked up. Better luck next time.

Histogram? Thought that was what you got, to take to your primary physician after undergoing a colonoscopy. Isn't digital photography magnificent?

mcveed Loc: Kelowna, British Columbia (between trips)

Histogram? Thought that was what you got, to take to your primary physician after undergoing a colonoscopy. Isn't digital photography magnificent?[/quote]

No, its like a telegram from someone who is hysterical.

jdventer Loc: Wallingford, CT, USA

Izza1967 wrote:

I have seen that feature but don't know if it acts just like the real thing. Anyone tried it and compared to real ND filter?

I've used it on RAW files. It works well but it is not magic; it can not create detail if is not there due to under or over exposure. Having said that I find it usually works pretty well.

LoneRangeFinder Loc: Left field

mcveed wrote:

Histogram? Thought that was what you got, to take to your primary physician after undergoing a colonoscopy. Isn't digital photography magnificent?

No, its like a telegram from someone who is hysterical.[/quote]

Or a really old grandmother talking about the "good old days"?

;-)

Izza1967 Loc: Bristol, England

mcveed wrote:

I just pulled your download into Aperture 3 to see if I could recover it. It looks like you have done some PP work before you posted the 'original'. There is a visible halo around the tree on the left. This is normally caused by messing about with software. Anything I did to enhance the image just emphasized the halo and ruined the image. But definitely the bottom 25% is totally blocked up. Better luck next time.

I did nothing but convert to jpg in the original image :)

Izza1967 Loc: Bristol, England

jdventer wrote:

Izza1967 wrote:

I have seen that feature but don't know if it acts just like the real thing. Anyone tried it and compared to real ND filter?

I've used it on RAW files. It works well but it is not magic; it can not create detail if is not there due to under or over exposure. Having said that I find it usually works pretty well.

Thanks for that, think I will get myself some ND filters and see how they perform for me.

mcveed Loc: Kelowna, British Columbia (between trips)

Izza1967 wrote:

I have seen that feature but don't know if it acts just like the real thing. Anyone tried it and compared to real ND filter?

No, it doesn't act like the real thing. You get those annoying haloes around things which you don't get with real graduated ND filters.

CanonFire Loc: Phoenixville, PA

davidcaley wrote:

Your original single exposure image cannot hold th... (show quote)

A single raw image does not contain enough dynamic range to create a true hdr image. That's why you need to take multiple shots at different exposures, to capture that range of lights and darks that digital cameras can't capture in one image. You aren't really opening up the dynamic range of a single raw image by duplicating it and bumping the exposure in post process. Yes, you may see some improvement, but all you're creating is a "faux" hdr image. You can't add dynamic range where none exists in the first place.

davidcaley Loc: Utah

True, you are correct, but just more details for a photographer with CS6 that does not use ACR.

You gotta try the Merge to 32 bit and use ACR make adjustments rather than Photomatis, Nik HDR Pro 2 with strange adjustments.

Photomatix and Photoshop CS6 have Merge to 32bit and then make adjustments in regular Develop in LR 4 or ACR. Better controls.

using DXO to adjust Merge 32bit

johnnied1

Just a short input, don't forget you are reading a Jpeg histogram on the back of the camera, and if it shows clipping in the Highlights, and IF you are shooting in RAW, you may still have one or two f stops to play with before the RAW file actually clips.