Histograms
Photo processing software and more modern digital cameras often display histograms. Do you wonder what are those?
A histogram is a graphic that represents brightness in the horizontal axis and the number of pixels in the vertical axis. If you read the histogram from left to right, you will find shadows first, midtones next, and highlights at the right.
The shadows are the dark areas in the image and the highlights are the bright areas in the image.
Histograms are useful because you can determine if the picture was overexposed or underexposed at a glance. If the picture is underexposed, the histogram only has peaks on the left side – shadows or dark areas – and if the picture is overexposed, the histogram only has peaks on the right side. There are too many pixels with information about bright areas and very few for shadows, then editing is difficult.
If your camera is able to display the histogram, you will be able to see the brightness of the picture regardless how bright is around the screen and you will be able to correct areas too bright or too dark before shooting.
