Datasheet

■ BASIC DIGITAL CAPTURE WORKFLOW

Figure 1.39 Edit color using the Hue and Saturation sliders.

When you calibrate this way, you maintain the best possible quality and retain

the most ﬂexibility for processing your RAW ﬁles. Establishing a calibration with

Zero slider positions ensures that the RAW data is recorded at the highest signal level

without encountering serious white point clipping. This is pretty much like “exposing

to the right of the histogram” but with greater precision. The only drawback is that

the previews on the camera LCD might seem a little bright. Adobe Camera Raw is the

only RAW processing software I’m aware of that allows for true zero or linear defaults

in all its settings, so this calibration strategy won’t work with your camera software or

something like Phase One’s Capture One software.

Exposing to the Right

You might have heard that it’s a good idea to “expose to the right of the histogram.” Experts

often recommend doing so when you evaluate the exposure based on the histogram display

on the LCD on the back of the camera (see the accompanying graphic). The idea is to open the

exposure enough that the main peak in the histogram is right of center but not slammed against

the right edge, thereby placing the captured data where most of the useable bits are.

The idea is good in theory but bad in practice because the histogram cannot tell you where you

are placing your tones with any precision, and it can’t tell whether the histogram is appropri-

ate for the subject. (What picture goes with this histogram?) The camera’s histogram is only a

general indication of the distribution of values in the

camera-generated JPEG. It is usually a composite of

all three channels. The RAW data has a much wider

distribution of tones that will vary in each channel,

so you may not know if you are clipping important

data in the Red channel simply by looking at the

histogram display on the camera.

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