Are these 'Levels' normal?

[I Simonius]

I know nothing about levels and just wondered whether this one with all the little humps, looked normal?

[PacAce]

Was this straight out of the camera or after you did some editing? If it's after you did some editing, try converting to 16-bit first before doing any type of editing. That'll make a big difference.

[I Simonius]

Was this straight out of the camera or after you did some editing? If it's after you did some editing, try converting to 16-bit first before doing any type of editing. That'll make a big difference.

Shot as large jpeg
no editing, was about to edit ( am trying to learn about levels) when I saw this was different from all the others and thought - 'strange!'

[PacAce]

Shot as large jpeg
no editing, was about to edit ( am trying to learn about levels) when I saw this was different from all the others and thought - 'strange!'
Could be from the internal editing done by the camera when converting from raw to jpg.

[scottbergerphoto]

Discrete edges like that usually mean a loss of data from editing. It probably occurred in conversion to jpeg in the camera.

[PacAce]

Scott, we're starting to think so much alike that it's kinda scary, no? ;) :lol:

[PhotosGuy]

Just to "pick a nit", & FYI, there is no "normal" levels as they depend on what the pic was taken of. You have a good range of colors & intensities here, so I'd go with the answers given above.

[PacAce]

Just to "pick a nit", & FYI, there is no "normal" levels as they depend on what the pic was taken of. You have a good range of colors & intensities here, so I'd go with the answers given above.
Very true, Frank, but "combing" of a histogram is a sign of an abnormality on an otherwise normal histogram. :)

[I Simonius]

Very true, Frank, but "combing" of a histogram is a sign of an abnormality on an otherwise normal histogram. :)

My real concern is that I seem to be a magnet for dodgy technology
- this is my third 20D.

So I am just concerned that it isn't a camera fault

Therefore all experienced advice welcome

[Jon, The Elder]

Gotta go with PACACE on this one. Not uncommon to see something like this after two (2) passes in photoshop. Thin white spaces indicate lost data. Overall shape of histogram is quite reasonable.

[I Simonius]

Gotta go with PACACE on this one. Not uncommon to see something like this after two (2) passes in photoshop. Thin white spaces indicate lost data. Overall shape of histogram is quite reasonable.

but as I keep saying - it hasn't had any passes in PSHP - this was the first thing I did to the original file , a jpeg - opening of levels,

[chris.bailey]

To my eye that does look a little strange even allowing for the in-camera jpg processing. PS levels changes of an 8 but image do create combing but normally with some full depth white space.

As that is a composite (RGB) histo, it would be interesting if you could post up the individual colour channel histos.

[PacAce]

but as I keep saying - it hasn't had any passes in PSHP - this was the first thing I did to the original file , a jpeg - opening of levels,
Do all your JPG files out of the camera look like the sample you posted? I don't really shoot JPG so off the top of my head I can't tell you if what you have is indicative of a problem with your camera but I'll take a look at the few JPG files I do have to see how they look when I get home tonight unless somebody else can jump in with that info.

[I Simonius]

I don't usualluy shoot jpeg either.
I suspect I had done something to this file without realising it, that is to say - I probably had changed it in pHSP while I was rushing through things
I can't see any other explanation