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Understanding RGB Histograms
In this lesson you’ll learn about why the histogram found in your camera is not an accurate reflection of what is being captured in a raw file. You’ll also discover how to think about colorful histograms that display red, green and blue shapes that overlap. You’ll see how you can determine how colorful a scene is via the histogram and if grays are truly neutral. Then you’ll understand how post-processing your images will affect a histogram and when you might want to start looking for banding in your image. We’ll experiment with raw files as well as 8-bit and 16-bit files to learn how those qualities affect your results. We’ll also briefly discuss out of gamut colors and how the resulting saturation clipping shows up in a histogram and how your color space will affect the results. Finally, you’ll see the disadvantages of the Luminosity histogram that many cameras use and why the histogram in Photoshop and Lightroom are much more accurate and useful, especially when looking for saturation clipping.
Note A: This description is longer than most just to make it easier to find the lesson when searching for one of the topics covered.
Note B: This lesson does not have any downloadable practice images.