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<blockquote data-quote="BackdoorArts" data-source="post: 465783" data-attributes="member: 9240">The real histogram freaks would look at this and tell you how this screams about all the white balance work you need to do because you have your colors peaking in different places.&nbsp; There's a science to that obsession, but I can't go there.&nbsp; For me it's not a shape-thing, it's a breadth thing.&nbsp; If you've got a wall of data up against either end (i.e. lost shadows, blown out highlights) and you weren't looking for that, then you're improperly exposed.&nbsp; More importantly, for me, is if you've got something that looks like yours but there's space to the left and right of your curve.&nbsp; What that means is that you're losing tool effectiveness in those areas and your image is likely going to look more compressed than it could.&nbsp; Here's an example of a toss away shot.&nbsp; On top you can see that there is lots of room to the right of the histogram, and a little to the left.&nbsp; This is very typical of cloudy day shots.&nbsp; On the bottom all I've done is moved the White and Black sliders so that the information I have covers the entire histogram (hold the alt/option key down when you do it and you'll see the lightest/darkest areas appear when you've crossed the boundary).&nbsp; [ATTACH=full]164718[/ATTACH] The white and black level will need to change as I adjust other things, but you can see how the flat image now has a bit of pop.&nbsp; This also means that anything curve related (highlight, shadow) will actually have data to work with, whereas prior to the adjustment the highlight slider likely would have had little effect.</blockquote>

[QUOTE="BackdoorArts, post: 465783, member: 9240"] The real histogram freaks would look at this and tell you how this screams about all the white balance work you need to do because you have your colors peaking in different places. There's a science to that obsession, but I can't go there. For me it's not a shape-thing, it's a breadth thing. If you've got a wall of data up against either end (i.e. lost shadows, blown out highlights) and you weren't looking for that, then you're improperly exposed. More importantly, for me, is if you've got something that looks like yours but there's space to the left and right of your curve. What that means is that you're losing tool effectiveness in those areas and your image is likely going to look more compressed than it could. Here's an example of a toss away shot. On top you can see that there is lots of room to the right of the histogram, and a little to the left. This is very typical of cloudy day shots. On the bottom all I've done is moved the White and Black sliders so that the information I have covers the entire histogram (hold the alt/option key down when you do it and you'll see the lightest/darkest areas appear when you've crossed the boundary). [ATTACH type="full" width="60%"]164718._xfImport[/ATTACH] The white and black level will need to change as I adjust other things, but you can see how the flat image now has a bit of pop. This also means that anything curve related (highlight, shadow) will actually have data to work with, whereas prior to the adjustment the highlight slider likely would have had little effect. [/QUOTE]

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