ESFotoClix Blog

When it comes to digital photography, you have no doubt heard many say “Avoid blown highlights.” I say unto you, avoid unnecessary obsession with “blown” highlights. I say this primarily because, while there are many good reasons to avoid blown highlights, the real goal should be to achieve the exposure that works for a given photograph, not live a life-long quest to avoid “the blinkies” or whites that rack-and-stack against the right side of your histogram. To see this, let’s look at the following example. The goal here was to capture a panorama of an iconic ship, whose watery resting place made HDR (one tool to avoid blown highlights) a non-option.

Look across this wide image, and you’ll find plenty of “blown” highlights. Avoiding these would have meant casting the rest of the scene in near pitch-black darkness. Would that work? Not really.

The two guidelines one should follow to know whether to fret about blown-burned-hot highlights are:

1. Are the “blown” highlights distracting from the subject?
2. Are the “blown” highlights causing loss of critical detail?

Now look back at the photo (or whatever image you are evaluating), and you’ll see that the answer to both of these questions is “NO.” In that case, claim victory and move on.

The following is an example of where a “blown” (bright, really) highlight is distracting from the intended subject. Perhaps a crop is needed to ensure the viewer’s eye doesn’t keep going to the bright spot.

An example of where a blown (or overly bright) highlight comes at a loss of detail is a photograph involving a wedding dress. Overly bright whites might destroy the fine embroidered or beaded detail in a beautiful dress, or in some cases, even draw attention away from the bride’s face. Not good! On the other hand, in some cases, the bright whites cannot be avoided if one wants to maintain proper skin tones — it’s not always about the shadows. Nonetheless, always shoot RAW and allow yourself the option to calm down the highlights in PP while preserving the rest of the tonal range. Here’s an example where I decided the eye wasn’t overly drawn to the bright whites (the groom’s shirt, actually!), but a lot of it has to do with the point of the photo (the ring and the faces), which is so strong, as to make the bright whites almost irrelevant. Incidentally, if you study the histogram for this photograph, you will discover that the whites aren’t bunched up against the bright side of the histogram, illustrating that a bright highlight that isn’t “blown” can be just as much of a potential distraction as a truly “blown” one.

BTW, related to those original two questions are:

1. Does avoiding “blown” highlights cast the subject in shadows?
2. Does preservation of highlight detail lead to unacceptable shadow detail?

As we saw in the first photo, an avoid-blown-highlights-at-all-costs strategy would have made the rest of the image so dark as to lose important detail in the ship and surrounding environs. A balanced, sometimes compromising approach is often the best way forward. In short, I think most of the over-emphasis on avoiding “blown” highlights arises from a lack of understanding and appreciation of what the photo is about and what therefore is and isn’t important in the photo. Keep that first and foremost, and then you’ll be able to decide whether the “blown” highlight is truly an issue, or whether you can blow off the whole thing.

Yesterday I had the privilege to photograph my first wedding. I approached the day with much preparation that did not diminish trepidation arising from all the “don’t do it” admonitions one reads in photo forums. Though I knew my weaknesses going in, I calmed my nerves with Joe Buissink‘s advice: “There is no such thing as a perfect photo but only perfect moments.” Reviewing my photos brings this point home.

Before the ceremony, I was walking through the house when, alone in the family room, I found the bride’s daughter and flower girl.

I snapped that photo, then asked her to step to the window and take a peek.

Very happy with this photo, I went on my way, thinking I had a winner: a perfect photo.

Little did I know that the piece of paper she held in her hand in the 1st photo contained a hand-written song she had prepared — see the pen on the table? This song she delivered during the reception, among other things communicating her love for “her new step dad.” I barely managed to grab a few shots, all of which can be counted, for various reasons, in the imperfect category.

A few minutes later, this nice shot materialized.

Now look back through these images. If you were to judge them purely on technical terms, there’s always room to do it better. If you walk through them as a story, with the context of the joining of two people and their families, the moments trump any technical criteria. Together, these photos show one thread of the spirit behind this great day.

From now on, I’m thinking Moments, not pictures.

Today I fielded a question from a self-acclaimed purist when it comes to photographic color rendition. He wanted to know how one can reproduce the colors one sees with maximum fidelity. My response, as an ex-purist myself, went like this:

How do you know your eyes aren’t in fact in need of calibration? We know some people are color blind, and for the rest of the population, we perceive hues and subtleties differently. So where’s the standard? As an ex-PURIST who couldn’t reconcile these difficult questions with a 100% representation of “color reality,” my recommendation to you is that you start seeing color as an element that adds appeal to your photos. Yes, do avoid boiled-lobster skin tones (hate that!) and don’t go overboard with saturated greens that make the forest look like astroturf, if that’s your personal taste. But relax about getting things “exactly” like you saw them. Here are a couple of gotchas to help you think about this:

1. Color rendition in the field (if you want to get it dead-on in-camera) will depend on 4 basic components: (a) Picture Control (tone curve + saturation + hue), (b) White balance (WB), (c) your lens, and (d) your sensor. You can only control the first 2, and in my experience, with limited ability to counter-act the last 2. Good luck.
2. Color rendition in post-processing has a lot more flexibility, except for one thing: unless you’re editing the photo on your computer with the original scene lit with the original lighting right in front of you, more good luck to you remembering what it ‘actually’ looked like. Add to this complications with calibrated monitors, whether the other display (printed paper, Web user’s monitor, etc.) will match your colors, and the odds of total color fidelity start to fade into an abyss of frustration.
3. Exact color fidelity isn’t always desired. For instance in cases where ambient light is modifying skin tones or even whites beyond what’s “real” or “expected” you will have to come up with a choice: do I want actuality or do I want it to feel right. Whatever decision you make, because of the two previous points, you will not reach 100% fidelity. It always comes down to a matter of choice.

Once this dawned on me, the whole issue of color rendition became less of a concern, and now I just look to stay within certain bounds rather than look for single-point answers to how an image should look. This is freedom, and I recommend you embrace it.

If you want more food for thought, check out previous discussions at: White balance blog entries.