photoshop lightroom tutorials

Mastering the Histogram in Adobe Photoshop Lightroom

In several previous articles, we’ve discussed how to interpret the histogram on your camera. While shooting, you can use this handy tool to check your highlights and shadows to make sure there isn’t an unacceptable amount of clipping. Unfortunately, if you spot a problem in-camera, the best you can do is adapt your settings and improve future shots.

Today we’re going to apply these same principles to post-processing in Lightroom 3. Here, the histogram is not only an indicator of the current state of the shot, but a tool that you can use to actually improve the photo.

Note: Although we’re using Lightroom for this example, the techniques and principles apply to any photo editing program.

What is the Histogram?

If you’re unsure about what we’re even talking about, launch Lightroom, select a photo and go to the Develop Module. In the top right of this screen you should see a colorful graph that seems like it would surely be too complex to be useful.

...

Pages

Categories