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Participant
September 20, 2023
Question

Understanding the rate of histogram shifts when exposure and other variables are changed

Hi, I am new to lightroom, and recently started putting an effort to better understand the nature of the histogram change when exposure, highlights, shadows, blacks, whites, and contrasts are changed.

My observations-

1. When exposure is changed, all the regions of the histogram change at the same rate.

 

2. When highlights, shadows, blacks, and whites are changed,  the respective section changes fast, but other areas also shift, but at a lower rate.

Are my observations correct?

Is there a way to find the exact rates of changes in different sections when each section is changed?

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2 replies

dj_paige
Legend
September 20, 2023

Regarding #1, I would not use those words, specifically most of the pixels in the image changes to lighter or darker when Exposure changes, but at the extremes (very close to white or very close to black), changing the exposure might not change the pixels in those regions as much as it  changes the pixels in the midtones.

 

Regarding #2, I don't think that changing the black slider, for example, causes even the slightest change to pixels that are in the highlights. (The histogram may appear to change because it is constantly being re-scaled on the vertical axis to account for the maximum bar height).

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Participant
September 20, 2023

I was not aware of the rescaling of the histogram. That's a great, great insight. Thanks!

But theoratically, changing  any of the sections(midtone, shadow, hightlight, black, and white) should not affect rest of the sections at all. But it appears, Adobe Lightroom changes others at a certain rate.  The appearance could be solely due to the scaling issue. But, I'll have to verify somehow.

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