I’ve seen lots of talk about histograms in the blogosphere lately. I’ve been meaning to post some quick tips about using the histogram for quite awhile (because I get asked about it all the time), so seeing these other posts has prompted me to finally do so.

But wait, there’s more! I’ve actually taken this as an opportunity to to kick off a series of Quick Tip posts about photography that I will gradually release over the coming weeks. These are all based on a bunch of reminder notes that I’ve saved over the years that helped me remember some of the finicky little details about photography. These things aren’t always obvious to new users, and they really helped me out as I learned the craft. Fortunately they are also really easy things to share!

So here’s the first one…

Using a Histogram

NOTE – If you don’t know what an image histogram is, go to Wikipedia’s Histogram article first. In short, a histogram is simply a relative indicator of how much of your image is dark, or light, or somewhere in between.

• Right Side – Indicates the brightest parts of the image. If the curve touches the right side of the chart window then parts of the image may be pure white or overexposed.
• Left Side – Indicates the darkest parts of the image. If the curve touches the left side of the chart window then parts of the image may be pure black or underexposed.
• If the chart touches both sides of the chart window at the same time then the scene is very contrasty. You will have to choose to expose correctly for the dark parts of the image, the light parts of the image, or somewhere in between. But you can’t possible expose for everything at the same time. You could also consider shooting a bracket and blending the exposures in post (eg. shoot for HDR).
• If you want to “Move to the Left” (or make the image darker) then increase the shutter speed, increase the F-stop (which actually means to use a smaller aperture), or use a lower ISO setting.
• If you want to “Move to the Right” (or make the image brighter) then decrease the shutter speed, or decrease the F-stop (which actually means to use a larger aperture), or use a higher ISO setting.

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