Photoshop | Dodge and Burn

photography

Sep 6

In this case mostly dodge.

One of the things I always keep an eye on when shooting is the image histogram. The histogram is an image exposure graph and it will tell you how well your image is exposed.

A properly exposed image will reveal a histogram exposure graph that lies within the boundaries of the graph. A “clipped” image is one where the highlight or shadow information in the image is pushed off the ends of the histogram and this information can generally not be recovered. To view the histogram in-camera you can adjust your settings to show it on top of or adjacent to the image preview immediately after taking the photo or you can view it during image previews by pressing the INFO button (Canon-specific).

The first image below is straight out of the camera with no adjustments. The histogram below it shows that the shadow data is off the chart but not substantially. Looking at the photo you can see that the shadows are dark but, in most cases, have not gone far enough to be of concern.

The second image after the first histogram is the edited version of the first image. Shadow data improved, colors enhanced and details on the buoys dodged to bring out the textures. I also cloned out the overhead power line as it was the one annoying element that needed to go.

Taken with the Canon EOS M6 + Canon 22mm f/2 at ISO 100, f/3.2, 1/4000 (taken handheld against a bright hazy sky).

Histogram of the RAW image straight out of the camera. Fairly well exposed with an almost unavoidable shadow data portion off of the histogram. I indicated unavoidable as handheld shooting is difficult to be precise with, particularly when people are moving around you and you cannot spend too much time fiddling around with the camera settings.

Rule of Thumb: Always aim to underexpose your images a little bit. I usually got for 2/3 to 1 stop underexposed and remember that shadows are easier to recover than overexposed highlights.