I am getting very confused about highlights in photographs. I see it often said that the highlights should not be blown in a photograph - is this always the case ? When is it bad and when is it good ? Has the above photograph got blown highlights? Are they good blown highlights or bad blown highlights? If I want to take realistic photographs shouldn't I blow out the highlights because when I walk out of my house into the sun I can't see anything but blown highlights with my eyes ? I would appreciate some guidlines on this, I'm one confused snapper :|

hi Richard, whether blown highlights (or black areas) are good or bad depends on the intention of an image and/or taste of course; it has become an issue because digital cameras are much more sensitive than film (where you have a variety of films with different behaviour and varying developing options) in my view blown highlights are bad whenever they are not intended (some postwork even generates them); that's why f.i. for portraits I usually take an exposure bias of -1/2 step in your example I don't like the overexposed clouds while the glass is fine for me; look at my "winter walks" for an intended highlight... (that's also one reason why I appreciate the SR CCD in my S3)

Dont look at me for answers Richard. Chances are i may appear more stupid than i am.

I have another example that ive been wondering about. I hope its okay with you Richard if i post it in your thread. Is this a case of badly blown highlights?

ROTFLMAO! PS...I think there is nothing wrong with that shot,highlight-wise.It looks totally natural to me.Is that a bad thing? ;^)

Hi Richard,

I 'feel' that your capture is well balanced and the question of blown (or not) highlights is just a theoretical point of view.

Anyone should capture balanced as our eyes automatically 'balance' accordingly to light conditions.

I appreciate your capture very much ---> nothing wrong with it !!!

Carlos.

P.S.- just my opinon :)

another problem, Richard, is that we are looking at pictures on different monitors, set to different levels of contrast and brightness. A picture that will appear 'blown' on one monitort will look fine on another - your picture above looks fine to me on this computer Charles

That looks fine and natural to me. Zacko's dog, though, seems to be pushing it close.

I thought "blown out" means the detail is lost, generally not recoverable..just gone. Expose for highlights only and watch detail in shadow be gone..not to be found. Shadow appears more forgiving than highlights when improperly exposed, however. I am not against deliberately making the background blow out when all I really want there is nothing but light, for effect in some particular image. As for the buildings and crane with sky, the shot looks fine on this pc and pretty much as I would expect to see it. Now, how would it do in bw rendering?

Richard I think your image looks perhaps as good on my monitor as you saw it with your eyes. No changes needed there. Andreas....yeah a bit overkill on the flash. Bouncing of off something else might have produced a more natural look. Not that I am an expert in light set up,or any photography, but I do know what I like. I'm not a moderator because I am a pro photographer, but that I knew html and was always around. If someone gives me critique, I love it. I may try it, and if not happy then move on to something else real fast. You are right Tom...I think blow out means an unrecoverable lightness that took over what ever was supposed to be there. Mostly in skies, I imagine.Or white backgrounds.

Richard, what you said about making realistic photographs is what i was talking to kemal about last week.
we were outside and i said, "Look at that sky, honey! the highlights are blown!!!" :) LOL!

to shoot realistically exactly what i was seeing, my highlights would be blown i reckon. if that's what i want to do and i like how the image looks, then that's fine with me.

i like your image, Richard, and i think the highlights look just fine.

i've been studying Ansel Adams' images a lot these days. i spent $26 on a weekly calendar...each week has a print. i got sick of looking at his images on the web. Like Charles said, with different monitors and settings, the image will look different. i wanted to see his images in print.

anyway, kemal and i were studying them and some of his images look overexposed to us. But when you look at the image in its entirety, there's such an incredible balance to to it! and the contrast between the darks and brights make for such a visually stunning image.

have you seen Adams' image "Oak Tree, Snowstorm, El Capitan Medadow, Yosemite National Park, California, 1948" Also, Adams' "Salt Flats, near Wendover, Utah" (1941) looks like the salt flats are blown. are they really blown? hell...i dunno. i think they are. looks pretty damn bright. Does it bother me? No way! when i look at the image as a whole it looks magnificent!

i think i can get a better understanding if i don't have to worry if my monitor is callibrated right. i believe my monitor is callibrated right, but who knows. looking at the print takes away that factor of "does it look blown out because of my monitor."

sorry for rambling about Adams, but when you talk about highlights, his images are ones i look at and study.
anyway, sometimes i think blown out highlights can be a major distraction. other times, a few hot spots don't bother me. i guess it depends on the image and how hot those hot spots are.

i have a few images where i was trying to take a realistic image and the lighting was extremely harsh and i was trying to show that in my image. is the image visually appealing? dunno. some i like; some i don't.

sorry if my thoughts seem incoherent. i'm exhausted. i've had my coffee an hour ago but i still feel half asleep. i have to go to work in 10 min. & i still feel have asleep. what's wrong with me?

i like the picture Andreas, but if it was mine, i would see if i could work on it a bit. brighten the shadows to bring in more of those details. dunno if you can recover some of the details in his ear.

anyway, all this is just my silly 2 cents worth. :)

this one i'm sure is a total mess technically. haha. but i did make the picture the way i wanted to. overexposed. yep. i like it like this and shot it like this knowing there was no detail in the background. why? for the hell of it. because i liked it.

would it be better to have shown the trees and beautiful background? i guess. like i said, this image is not right technically but i like it anyway.

might show more later. gotta go to work. how the hell am i gonna go to work like this? sigh. man i feel weird. edit: can't remember if it was this overexposed in the original image. i may have pushed it even more in postwork. can't remember for sure.

Message edited on: 01/15/2006 14:27

Do you mind if I post a quick bw version of your image? To my eye, color is sometimes deceiving and bw shows a tonality useful to "me" in working an image. Sheila, to my feeling on your shot, the tree would mess things up. I like the mood of it all. This image is obviouisly exposed for the effect..much different than an image that simply looks misexposed in highlight.

Not at all Tom go ahead - I converted the image to b/w after shooting it so would love to see what you make out of it.

heree tis, fairly quick convert.

Thanks Tom - I think you spotted the purpose of the image and that it is better in b/w

I don't really feel the shot works. I took it because at the time it caught my eye with the repeating triangles and the hi tech look of the metal/glass buildings. I don't think I composed the shot very well and it has failed in most areas. The exception perhaps being the exposure where I did manage to catch a shine to the building on the left which although it loses detail in the brightest part does show the building is metal. Perhaps just too many subjects here.

Just one of those ones that has been hanging about a long time and belongs in the recycle bin.

Message edited on: 01/15/2006 16:27

I cant remember how many times I have aired my opinion on "blown highlights" quite a few now. Anyway Richard, looking at your shot, I would expect that to look similar to the eye which indeed has a much greater tonal range. There are times when blown highlights work/are acceptable and times when they dont work/arent acceptable. I really like your shot, and whilst there are possibly some blown or close to blown highlights, they are controlled and dont IMO detract from the overall image All so subjective anyway, who can really say whether an image that has blown/clipped highlight and shadow is either good or bad, so much depends on the subject matter and what is being portrayed. On the flipside of blown highlight is loss of shadow detail, which you dont want too much of either, like Tom says this can be more forgiving than blown highlights, but will also most likely have more noise lurking in them too, bringing up excessive shadow can really enhance the noise. Love the shot, really like the compo and POV too. Shelia, like your image, think it is well executed, not over exposing the highlights in the arches is probably not possible without the use of artificial light to compensate, which !MO wouldnt have worked as well.

Richard, if posted in the genre "architectural" or possibly the non-existent "architechtural in progress" or as a true to life "city scape"...then the image works. This reminds me somewhat of old technical photos my dad had from construction of dams 60 years ago..yet with a twist of pov so as not to be too technical. I personally like the bw compatibility with the subject matter. To me, the highlights, since that is the subject...LOL...do work at are. Tom.