From the course: Creating a Short Film: 07 Cinematography

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Evaluating a histogram

Evaluating a histogram

- Another tool to gauge exposure is a histogram. A histogram is a graph that gives you information about the brightness values of an image. Histograms can be found on many monitors and on the displays of many cameras. On the left side of the histogram, we have a readout of the shadow areas. The right side shows us the highlights, and the middle displays the mid-tones. Now the higher the graph is over a particular brightness value, the more of that particular value is seen in your image. So if you have a histogram that looks like the letter 'L' for example, that might suggest that your crushing the shadows, and that there's really not enough contrast or detail or highlights in the image. If the graph is shifted towards the right like the letter 'J', it suggests that the image might be overexposed. Now, as a general rule of thumb, I try to make sure that my histogram has detail throughout the brightness spectrum and that the ends of the histogram aren't clipped, or in other words, all…

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