Lightroom: "RAW" histogram?

[@blindguardian8599]

I have a HDR monitor (1000 nits full screen brightness) and images look out of this world in this format. The 3-4 extra stops in the highlights really make a big difference in the realism of the photos.

[@gregbenzphotography]

Which model? One of the ASUS ones?

[@blindguardian8599]

@@gregbenzphotography Yeah, the Asus ProArt PA32UCR-K.

[@gregbenzphotography]

How do you like it overall? Using with Mac or Windows?

[@blindguardian8599]

@@gregbenzphotography I'm on Windows. I'm pretty happy with it. It ticks almost all the boxes I want in a photo editing and entertainment monitor, except refresh higher than 60 (not a big gamer fortunatelly) and Dolby Vision. I wanted a monitor that was a flat 32'', 4k rez, very bright with HDR capabilities (my room is bathed in sunlight most of the day), non OLED cause it would have image retention when using it in desktop editing mode, full coverage of sRGB, 95-100% DCI-P3, at least 120Hz refresh rate, and displays that fell into these criteria were very few, and I ended up with this one.

[@bala1000mina]

As always very informative, Thank you so much Greg!

[@PeeGeeTips]

It’s a shame nearly all camera companies don’t display the raw histogram at time of capture, I think phase one are the only manufacturer that gives you true raw sensor readout on their histogram and not the potentially clipped sdr histogram as you’ve demonstrated.

[@mikafoxx2717]

Canon cameras that support magic lantern can show it.. and that came out for a 2008 DSLR. Mirrorless not doing this these days is basically criminal.

[@dan_thaman]

fuji can show a raw-histogram and "raw-blinkies"

[@alexono88]

HDR looks incredibly promising and I love how my raw files are being rendered, but I can’t yet figure out a complete workflow in which to include HDR processing. I’m currently using Lightroom for raw editing, followed by a step in photoshop in which I usually dodge and burn, add Orton effect , etc. I then save the resulting tiff as my final result. From this tiff i then export jpeg for web or for printing. How can I do the SDR mapping from the tiff file, as I believe it’s kind of mandatory for now, to be backwards compatible? I feel like the HDR processing is still too new and has some big drawbacks that keep professionals away from using it, at least for now. Or, am I wrong?

[@gregbenzphotography]

You can do full workflows, but you’ll need to adapt a bit given how 32-bit PS works. My Web Sharp Pro has built in tone mapping options (settings / file / HDR options) if needed for export.

[@cmichaelhaugh8517]

This has the potential to be really helpful. Thanks!

[@ianharper6015]

Very interesting. Thank you.

[@NicolasAlexanderOtto]

I wonder how long it will take for people to have HDR monitors and wide gamut so all the extra technical aspects are seen by actual customers on a small screen in an office, at home or even their phone.

[@gregbenzphotography]

Phones since late 2020 and beyond have widespread support in hardware (Safari is a laggard for browsing so far). So Instagram is already probably a majority HDR platform. instagram.com/gregbenzphotography TVs are mostly HDR, as are Apple laptops / displays. Tablets are quickly moving to HDR (the M4 iPad Pro is one of the best displays ever released). Other external monitors mostly do not have support now, so that will take time. But with gain maps, everyone gets a great experience and it’s safe to share HDR now.

[@360dereceaz]

That was very useful and interesting. Thank you ! 😃

[@RanjanSharma2001]

So how do we use this HDR edited version on 1000nits HDR screen to export & deliver the images to web, do we have browser support HDR image formats like they do HDR videos formats?

[@gregbenzphotography]

See gregbenzphotography.com/hdr-photos/jpg-hdr-gain-maps-in-adobe-camera-raw/

[@M31glow]

Great post Greg! If I understand this correctly, if I expose my histogram to the right just to the level of clipping but do not clip, I should have data in the HDR range? Does this sound right?

[@gregbenzphotography]

Correct. If you enable HDR mode for a RAW image and nothing shows in that new HDR part of the histogram, the image was not “exposed to the right”.

[@norbertalexy8803]

Very interesting observations and explanations, Greg, thank you. My question here is: apart from avoiding noise by exposing to the right - and seeing it by using the new HR display function - how useful is this if I want to produce a good print from my image? Should I process using the extra dynamic range that I can see from 255 to 500? Or should I stay within the 255, because my printer is limited to SDR?

[@gregbenzphotography]

For printing, there is no benefit to HDR. I do recommend checking it out though as the image quality is a massive leap forward on a supporting display (which is becoming quite common with nearly all Apple monitors, smart phones and TVs supporting it already). You can edit both HDR for display and “SDR” for print fairly easily. gregbenzphotography.com/hdr/

[@oliviertorres8001]

If you change the Lightroom's color profile from Adobe Color to Linear Profile or at least a neutral Camera Matching profile, I assume that the histogram change. Is it the way (in HDR mode) to see the actual dynamic range of our sensor? Thxs

[@gregbenzphotography]

The histogram still reflects Adobe’s vision of the image in its neutral state. I’m not sure how a neutral input profile would map the data, but would not assume it’s going to give you a true RAW histo. I just see this as a convenient and useful for reviewing the data a little deeper. Check out RAW Digger if you want to go deeper, I’ve consistently seen and heard that it’s a very powerful tool.

[@kirkthibault3204]

At 1:52 - when you make adjustments like highlight and reduction in exposure - you ARE recovering highlights that have been pushed out of range by Lightroom's profile and tone curve. Recovering just means getting them back - in this case, Lightroom is the culprit, not some flaw in the data. I think you are conflating "recovering" with "reconstructing," where partially clipped data can be reconstructed (made up) to provide a reasonable estimate of the clipped highlights, assuming that they are neutral. It's semantic, I guess, but it's worth noting. Also - it is better, as you note, to use Raw Digger to assess a "raw" histogram, because LR is not showing you the raw data even with the HDR extension of the historgram, it's just the histogram in its internal color space.

[@gregbenzphotography]

Agreed, a bit of debate over definitions here. I generally take "recover" to imply there was some degree of damage. If you mean bringing it in range, sure it's "recovered" (I just think of that as processing). But a lot of people are under the impression that you're correcting over-exposure (damaged pixels), when you're really just editing them to display within the limits of an SDR monitor. The key thing to understand is that the pixel data was either captured or not, there's really no way to fix actual over-exposure (without inventing pixels with cloning, etc).

[@andycoleman2708]

But would that data (in the HDR histogram) show up on a print? I've never got a print back that didn't look like what I see on my screen.

[@gregbenzphotography]

There are many cases where the print will not match the monitor (out of gamut colors, limited contrast, etc). HDR is just creating more of a gap since monitors are improving and paper/ink is not (in the same way). But it's easy to manage both an HDR display and print: gregbenzphotography.com/hdr/#printing

[@BubbleGendut]

If there is data in the HDR range not visible as SDR would it still print? Or is the HDR also outside the range of printers

[@gregbenzphotography]

HDR range is not printable, but you can easily edit for both screen and print. gregbenzphotography.com/hdr#printing

[@gregbenzphotography]

Also worth noting that data in SDR mode is actually packed into the near white range, not clipped. So it’s still there, but so low contrast that it isn’t something we see.

[@davidmoore720]

As @PeeGeeTips points out, camera jpeg displays of an image are the most frustrating thing. You know that their indications of highlight clipping are too conservative, but it's difficult to judge by how much - so you have to err on the side of caution and hence miss out on part of the sensor's dynamic range. Any thoughts, Greg?

[@gregbenzphotography]

I’m with you. A histogram showing processed data is not sufficiently accurate to nail exposure every time with confidence. You can make some choices in the camera preview to help reduce accuracy issues (such as proper white balance even though RAW would let you change it later), but we could really benefit from better tools to evaluate exposure/clipping right in the camera.

[@carlmcneill1139]

I always shoot with a flat profile in my camera to get a truer histogram. So this is telling me that I can actually go a little brighter than what the histogram in my camera says I'm at? I do often shoot to the right of I think I can get everything in one exposure so that I have plenty of data in the shadows. But I will bracket my sis if I can't and then blend the exposures.

[@gregbenzphotography]

If the HDR histo is mostly empty, that would be the implication chances are you’re doing a good job shooting ETTR now. Try evaluating a handful of images at base ISO.

[@sramabadran]

When I use HDR mode in lightroom, with an HDR monitor (I have the BenQ 32" PD3205U) and export images for others to consume on SDR monitors, will they look much worse ?

[@gregbenzphotography]

You can not only control the SDR rendering with a gain map, but also see an exact preview of what will be shown on monitors that do not support HDR. Please see gregbenzphotography.com/hdr-images/jpg-hdr-gain-maps-in-adobe-camera-raw/

[@gregbenzphotography]

That monitor is quite limited for HDR (350 nits). How many stops do you see supported in test #1 when you set brightness to something modest? gregbenzphotography.com/hdr/#tests. I would think 2 stops would be feasible in a room that allows you set SDR brightness to 80 nits (cd/m^2).

[@sramabadran]

@@gregbenzphotography Thanks for the info! Will read up on gain maps and how to incorporate them into my workflow. i'm running on an M2 mac-mini with this monitor. It shows 1.1 stops for test1. I did not buy this monitor for HDR work specifically, so not too disappointed, but its something I will definitely look for when buying a monitor again. Since you say it works well on the native macbook pro display, I'll give it a try there as well. Thanks again for the useful videos and prompt responses!

[@gregbenzphotography]

Thanks for the feedback, good to know as I’ve had a few questions on similar monitors. The M1 and later 14-16” display is XDR and offers up to 4 stops (5 if you set a custom profile with 50 SDR and 1600 HDR for limits, but that’s too dark for most use).

[@dominiclester3232]

One reason I don’t use Lightroom is that it will do some recovery without asking or letting you know. You can overshoot on you camera and open Lr with all the sliders at zero and like magic, your image was seemingly shot perfectly...

[@gregbenzphotography]

All image data is manipulated in some way in a RAW viewer, it wouldn’t be very useful without some interpretation. None of these editors share what they do as far as I know, as it’s a competitive advantage.

[@dan_thaman]

how does a histogram relate to a monitor?

[@gregbenzphotography]

It doesn't generally, as it is a measure of the image data. However, the HDR histogram from Adobe shows the number of stops of headroom supported by the display - as well as clipping warnings based on the limits of the display. So that info is based on the monitor for the HDR histo in LR / ACR (the actual histogram plot is still just image data there).

[@Theory4]

Veeeeeery interesting 🎉

[@jensvielmann7662]

It’s nice to have a little graph but I don’t see the actual benefit. With a bit of experience you will see it in the image. At the very least once you play with the exposure slider.

[@gregbenzphotography]

It’s mostly just another way to understand something that isn’t intuitive for most people. It also helps clearly show how the highlights get compressed, which helps understand both SDR and the benefit of HDr more clearly.

[@petrub27]

We need raw histogram when recording the footages.

[@gregbenzphotography]

I’d love to see that or something similar. User error from lack of data to guide exposure settings really takes away from the technical improvements on these cameras. I frequently see people share images with significant underexposure in the RAW.

[@petrub27]

@@gregbenzphotography look no further than hasselblad

[@gregbenzphotography]

What do they have, a RAW histo??

[@dan_thaman]

@@gregbenzphotography fuji have true raw-histo (and blinkies) and on sony you can set zebra to 109 or so to get kind of "raw-zebra"

[@gregbenzphotography]

@@dan_thaman Where have you seen documentation that those are based on the RAW data and not the in-camera JPG? Sony would be a surprise to me, my understanding is that is based on the processed image, not RAW.