Working with the Histogram in Lightroom
At the top of the right panel in Adobe® Photoshop® Lightroom™, you'll see the Histogram, which provides a way to review and evaluate the overall tonality of your image (Figure 1). You are probably familiar with the histogram from your digital camera and Adobe Photoshop. It charts the distribution of tonal values within your image, so you can get a general sense of the relative brightness and contrast of an image. The chart starts with black on the far left and white on the far right. If the image is relatively dark, the histogram will be weighted toward the left. If the image is relatively bright, the histogram will be weighted toward the right. A histogram that is relatively tall on the outer ends and not very tall in the middle has higher contrast, whereas one that is not very tall on the outer ends but tall in the middle has lower contrast.
Figure 1: The Histogram provides a graphical indication of the distribution of tonal values within your image.
In this tutorial, you'll learn how to read the Histogram.
Requirements
To follow along with this article, you will need the following software:
Adobe Photoshop Lightroom
Prerequisite knowledge:
None
About the authors
Digital-imaging expert Tim Grey is the author of many books and articles on Photoshop and digital photography, including the Tim Grey Guides series from Sybex, an imprint of Wiley Publishing. Tim is Microsoft's chief ambassador to professional photographers and presents workshops around the world on digital imaging. He also publishes a daily e-mail list for photography enthusiasts, "Digital Darkroom Questions."
Excerpted from "Adobe Photoshop Lightroom Workflow: The Digital Photographers Guide," by Tim Grey. Copyright © 2007 Wiley Publishing, Inc. Used with permission of Wiley Publishing, Inc. To purchase the full retail version of this book, visit www.wiley.com.
