Processing RAW on PSCS

[Yeager]

Everytime I change something I keep looking at that histogram. What am I trying to accomplish? Should I be looking to make a nice picture or should I be trying to line up something on the histogram?

[Jesper]

Eeehh.... well, the goal is a nice picture, isn't it.... the histogram is just a useful tool to see what happens to your photo.

If you show someone a crappy photo and say "...but look how good the histogram looks!" people will probably think you're crazy... :lol:

[chris.bailey]

Don

In short both!

The histogram is there as an assistant to your eyes and you will soon learn to use it as a reference. Unfortunately there is no magic formula to line up peak a with point b but try and avoid flat areas at either end of the histogram (low contrast) or major peaks at either end (clipping). The ideal picture will have a smooth evenly spread histogram but that depends a lot on the shot.

Chris

[Scottes]

The only thing that I use that histogram for is to make sure that I don't clip any colors off and lose details in the highlights. Post-processing in regular PS is where I'll "stretch" the histogram. Usually.

[scottbergerphoto]

Everytime I change something I keep looking at that histogram. What am I trying to accomplish? Should I be looking to make a nice picture or should I be trying to line up something on the histogram?
http://www.luminous-landscape.com/tutorials/understanding-series/understanding-histograms.shtml
Regards,
Scott