I think that one can learn a great deal from good Photographic examples.
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I don’t use the Histogram all that much and I use it even less as a tool to then proceed to Chimp.
But having stated that,
I think that to use an Histogram for any useful purpose you need to first understand what the Image is - what is the Photographer's Vision; then secondly you need to understand what the Histogram will look-like: for THAT particular IMAGE.
There are no BAD Styles of Wine, but yes there are BAD wines: so to establish what wine is BAD you need to first know what each particular
Style of Wine is all about.
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Image #1
Here the Histogram crawls up the RH Side and the little spike is representative of blown windows and doors in the background – I’d be looking here that there is NOT a big bunching up at the RH side because about half of the scene is in ‘shadow’ by comparison – the point is the Photographer was looking for detail of the interior of the Mosque so this Histogram looks "OK" to me:
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Image #2
In this shot the Photographer wanted nothing blown out and the whole image erring toward Low Key (emphasising a pensive and reflective tone) the camera angle was manouvereed such that the lighting in the BACKGROUND was a close to black-black as possible – which was nearly achieved.
So IF this histogram were crawling up the RH side or (as in the above image#1) there were a nice “bump” in the middle of the Histogram, we would expect that the Photographer’s Vision might not be realized:
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Image #3
On the other hand for this image the Photographer’s vision was an High Key Image (rendering ‘happiness’ and ‘joy’) – so this Histogram is somewhat like a mirror, of the Histogram in Image #2:
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Image #4
This image, like Image #3 is also made in soft ambient room light - BUT – the Photographer’s vision was to allow the Subjects to speak for themselves and to carry the weight of the that load by their own personalities and the colours.
So – the camera viewpoint was chosen differently to that in Image #3.
Whilst there a little MODELLING on the Subject’s faces (especially OoF Woman), the lighting is reasonably flat and even across the scene – EXCEPT for the large window in the background.
So we would expect a “flat line” Histogram here – and we got it.
If we had a big bunch in the LH side we’d be thinking “underexpose” – if we got a big bunching at the RH side we’d be thinking “overexposure”:
WW