Brightness problems — distracting elements in photographs — Photography podcast #46

Pho­tog­ra­phy pod­cast #46 talks about being really care­ful about NOT includ­ing dis­tract­ing ele­ments in your pho­tographs. The eye nat­u­rally wan­ders toward the bright ele­ments in pho­tographs so being aware of bright­ness prob­lems, unwanted high­lights and other dis­trac­tions will improve your photography.

Links men­tioned in this pod­cast:
Tran­script to pho­tog­ra­phy pod­cast #1 — being aware of the back­ground
His­tograms in dig­i­tal photography

The 2 images below show how bright­ness issues and dis­tract­ing ele­ments can take the viewer’s eye away from the sub­ject. Shot 1 is unma­nip­u­lated. Shot 2 has the brighter ele­ments burned in (dark­ened) very quickly just to illus­trate the point. Many thanks to mer­man from our pho­tog­ra­phy forum for allow­ing me to use his pho­to­graph as a teach­ing tool.

brightness problem in photographs

brightness problem corrected in photograph


Thanks as always to Cyba­sumo, Chris, Sergey and De3montecarlo for recent com­ments and sug­ges­tions. We LOVE com­ments and sug­ges­tions so please send more.

You can down­load this pho­tog­ra­phy pod­cast directly by click­ing the pre­ced­ing link or lis­ten to it almost imme­di­ately with the embed­ded player below.

Histograms in digital photography — Photography podcast #41

Pho­tog­ra­phy pod­cast #41 offers a primer on his­tograms in dig­i­tal pho­tog­ra­phy. A his­togram is just a graph show­ing the dis­tri­b­u­tion of tones in a pho­to­graph. We dis­cuss how to ‘read’ his­tograms and how much atten­tion we should pay to them.


Images cour­tesy of cambridgeincolour.com

The images above reveal the his­tograms asso­ci­ated with them. Notice how in the right pho­to­graph there is still tex­ture in the white in the dog’s face and in the sand. If the his­togram was closer to the right edge we’d lose detail in the dog’s face and start los­ing detail in the sand.

Pho­tog­ra­phy links men­tioned in this pod­cast:
More in depth his­togram expla­na­tions:
http://www.cambridgeincolour.com/tutorials/histograms1.htm
http://www.cambridgeincolour.com/tutorials/histograms2.htm
HDR Pho­tog­ra­phy

Thanks as always for the com­ments and sug­ges­tions. We LOVE com­ments and sug­ges­tions so please send more.

You can down­load this pho­tog­ra­phy pod­cast directly by click­ing the pre­ced­ing link or lis­ten to it almost imme­di­ately with the embed­ded player below.