Which is better exposed?

[HrcRacing]

Hi,

Could someone with a calibrated monitor tell me which looks better exposed?

Obviously, it's the same image but I've lightened the second one after receiving prints that looked a bit dark to me.

Any and all help is greatly appreciated.

[Acip]

I think the second one is exposed correctly.... if by "correct" you mean to replicate how it really looked.

But personally I like the first one better.

[chomish]

Originally Posted by Acip

I think the second one is exposed correctly.... if by "correct" you mean to replicate how it really looked.

But personally I like the first one better.

Same here.

I think the first looks better as well.

[HrcRacing]

Thank you both. For the record, I prefer the first one too.

[midnitejam]

At first glance #2 is more acurately exposed.
#1 needs only to be dodged in the lower right corner and upper left corner in order to restore lost detail in the shadows.

At 2nd glance there seems to be less difference. I like them both.

I'm now wondering if the difference I saw at my initial viewing was a result of the power of suggestion when you suggested that the 2nd shot had more exposure.

[Bill Boehme]

There are elements of both that I like such as the lighter foreground in the second image and the darker background in the first. If you are using Photoshop, an editing process that could be put to use here is layers and masks so that you can use different processing for various parts of an image rather than globally applying the same corrections to the entire image.

[HrcRacing]

I don't have much experience with the Dodge tool, but gave it a quick try below. I probably over did it but I can see where that would really bring out the shadows.

I'm working with PSE 4.0 so I can work with layers, etc, as well.

Thank you very much for your help.

[SDavis Photo]

I must say I liked the frist one ,,looks very good to me, but I normally underexpose by 1/2 stop any way. so it's more to my liking. BTW none are bad
Sam

[Walczak Photo]

This is just strictly my own opinion here, but to me the first shot looks like the properly exposed shot. I believe the issue here is that you have a rather high contrast between the lovely silky white of the water fall, which in my mind is your central subject, and the dark shadows, especially in the foreground. In such a case the question is "What should I expose for?". If you expose for the scene as a whole here you would blow out the water fall really badly and since that's the central point of interest, obviously you wouldn't want to do that.

If this was shot in RAW I might go back and reprocess and open up the shadows just a bit as there's little or no detail in the blacks (such as the rocks in the top left corner there) but I wouldn't really change the over-all exposure per say.

Now as far as your prints coming back a bit dark, I would like to add here that that could simply be a matter of the profiles or something that your processing place uses. This was a problem I ran into myself for quite a while...either my colors would be off or the shot would look too dark or too bright, etc.. It's worth asking your "lab" about...what color profiles they use and then (try to) use the same profiles, if available, on your own system at home so that what you see on your monitor (assuming it's properly calibrated) will be what you see in your prints.

It's also worth noting that many people (especially here on POTN) seem to recommend using the Adobe RGB color profiles because they have a "wider color range" (gaumet?) but the problem is that most processing labs don't use this profile at all...at least none that I've ever ran into. When push comes to shove, I usually set -everything-...camera, monitor, printer, etc., to sRGB so that there's a better consistency from device to device. There's also a fair chance at least that your lab is using sRGB as well unless they're using something proprietary.

It's also worth mentioning that if you're doing your own processing at home (which I assume you are since you're asking the question) to make sure you tell the lab NOT to do any additional processing! Many, if not most labs are set up to process your average yo-yo's snap shots (as that's usually the majority of their business). Remember your average camera user doesn't usually know much, if anything, about photography let alone the finer aspects of exposure, color correction, etc.. They "point and shoot"...literally...and most folks are usually happy if the picture doesn't come out totally blurred! LOL!!! As such the equipment the lab uses often makes automatic adjustments to things such as brightness, contrast, saturation, etc., based on "average" shooting conditions. If your images are already adjusted however, the "additional automatic adjustments" that are often done without the aid of a lab tech, will usually ruin your pictures.

Okies...just my thoughts!
Jim

[HrcRacing]

Thank you both very much for your input. Greatly appreciated.

[Robert_Lay]

The histograms for the two shots show that both shots are equally underexposed for shadow detail. The two shots have been presented or rendered with different amounts of manipulation of the highlights and middle tones. In other words, we do not have two different exposures here - we have two different renditions of a single exposure. Therefore, there is no question of which was exposed properly.

So, the question of exposure is simply resolved - the shot is underexposed. However, as it is rendered, even though the second image is a little brighter, the underlying issue is whether or not the shadow detail is there, and it is not. This has more to do with initial capture than the question of how well it is presented here. In other words, both initial capture and rendition for this forum are both situations that require more than just getting the highlights and upper range of tones at the correct values. The lower tones and deep shadows cannot be ignored.