Understanding Your Camera's Histogram

Thanks for a very helpful description on using histograms.

Now I get it! Thank you so much!

Need to learn more about histograms. In my copy of "Mastering the Nkion D750", page 448, the author provided a link to this website to download a .pdf file titled "Understanding the Histogram" (to read off-line). I could not find that link.

Very good, educative tutorial on histogram and its usage. Thanks a lot man. Came across a dummy on this topic, specifically for my camera body (D5300), but should be same for other Nikon(and other cameras) as well. http://www.dummies.com/how-to/content/how-to-use-the-rgb-histograms-mode-on-your-nikon-d.html

I am new to Nikonians. I found out about it when I bought my new D7100. I have been spending a lot of time looking at the resources Nikonians offers and I am excited.

Gary Worrall (glxman) on August 15, 2015

Thank you Darrell, Very informative, thank you for your efforts, .......Gary

Neat, thank you for the article!

Very very clear and understandable thanks for a great article.

Thanks for the great article, very helpful and I now understand my cameras histograms much better

Thanks Darrell for sharing your knowledge you nailed many points that used to confuse me like the difference between luminous and RGB histograms.

Thanks Darrell, this is one of the most useful article on the subject. I also take the opportunity to commend you for your "Mastering the Nikon D600". Both required reading in my humble opinion.

Overall a good article. I agree the histogram is extremely valuable. I teach remote sensing and I have a couple of comments. Figure 1. Regarding your statement that the middle ranges “represent middle colors” like gray, light brown or green. Gray is correct, and light brown will be in that range. However, you could get a saturated green that bumps up to 255 (green being a primary color). The histogram here just shows levels of brightness (DN) and mentioning color here is a bit confusing because we don’t see individual histograms for red, green, and blue. You state that the height on the histogram represents the amount of individual colors. Actually, the height represents how many pixels have a certain brightness (or DN) value. In figure 1 an abundance of pixels in the image have values in the low 120s. Figure 3. Your statement that each prominent color will be represented with its own peak is misleading. If we saw one histogram for red, one for green, and one for blue we could start talking about color, but with this histogram that combines all three colors we can only talk about brightness levels. If we looked at individual histograms for the three primary colors we might see that they each contain several peaks, some of which might overlap (as shown in your figure 8). For example, there are probably pixels of green vegetation that have the same brightness or DN value as the blue sky. Essentially, those peaks in the histogram represent different materials or objects in the scene. Shadows and dark objects will be represented by peaks on the left and bright objects will be represented by peaks on the right.

Excellent article - brings light to bear!

Excellent article, Darrell. Thanks for keeping it oriented toward getting better pictures rather than getting buried in techie stuff. I would be interested in your answers to some of the questions about cameras with higher dynamic range and the impact of histogram peaks going past the top of the histogram window.

nice article worthy to be read again.

Very good article, well pitched and well written.

Excellent article! Thanks for posting.

great article and so simply put.

Excellent and concise article. I have tried to understand the histogram for some time and this article fills in the gaps.

Thanks Darrell for the excellent article. Please share some information regarding how to avoid clipping of the histogram from the top. I was reviewing some of my images and found it. How do I interpret those?

Very well done, simply & concisely explained covering the whole subject in one article at a level for new starters in particular.

I disagree with several of the exposure critiques. I think the girl on the bench is lovely as is and the dynamic computer processing on the cabin in the woods is incredibly phony.

Olivier Rychner (olivierrychner) on May 29, 2013

Nicely done! It must be put high on the beginner's reading list!

Tom Ferguson (tekneektom) on May 27, 2013

Excellent article. Takes a complex topic and makes it understandable. Thanks Darrell.

Excellent article; clear, concise and with good examples. Thank you for sharing!

Thank you for the excellent article. I greatly appreciate that you took the time to put this artile together. It is very helpful!

Thank you for explaining this in such a down to earth, easy to understand and able to follow along with using your suggestions. I totally understood how to use my histogram for the first time. Now I know what I was doing wrong in camera, instead of having to use software later thus not always getting the results I wanted in the first place. Now I am confident I will end up with the results I was looking for.

TO: Catalin Popescu That in shortcut depends on you. It is your photo and it is the most important, that you know what you want to have it as an outcome. If you are photographing night photos, you dont want the sky to be grey or even lighter then that. It should be black. The photo should reflect its original and even hese tools should not affect us in the final decision, what it should look like at the end. It is much better thou, to have many details in the photograph, even sometimes dark (or light) can bring up the purose and sense of the photo. Examples: http://images.nikonians.org/galleries/showphoto.php/photo/417288/size/big/cat/24483 This photo must be clamped to the side, because it is a dark photo. Even it has some middle tones and few lights, the final will look much on the left side. http://images.nikonians.org/galleries/showphoto.php/photo/416228/size/big/cat/24426 Basic photo like this is the best to have all informations in the middle, even there should be some peak due the dark flag holders behind me. Then there are photos, where you want to play with the deeper side, to make them look more sinister, but show them in full. The bellow is a good example. http://images.nikonians.org/galleries/showphoto.php/photo/416232/size/big/cat/24426 So the answer to your question is not easy, it depends what you were photographing, what you wish to say with it and if it is catching the eye. Good luck :)

Excellent article. Explains the concept very well. Would have liked some tips on how to correct the setting for additional shots (if there is an opportunity) after seeing the histogram.

Mick Klass (mklass) on May 26, 2013

Are the more recent Nikons (post D200/D80) capable of far more range? 9-12EV?

Thanks! I've never really got such a simple explanation of this process. Now I "get it!"

Makes it easy to understand. Thanks

Excellent article! Compressing the mid-tones is a different process than just manipulating exposure in post-processing to move the whole histogram to the left or right as needed, isn't it? If the histogram has no clippings to either side, does it make sense to make exposure adjustments in Capture NX or other software? What would you recommend as a good reading (for a non-pro) regarding compressing mid-tones in software? Thanks, Catalin

Clearly stated and easy to understand.

I really, really, really appreciated this. Thanks a lot!

Carol Freshley (PhotoSpydie) on May 23, 2013

I really enjoyed reading this article. I especially loved the examples. While I though I understood my camera's histograms I learned quite a bit from the article. Thanks so much for sharing.

Fantastic article. Now it makes more sense.

Excellent article as usual...