Guess The Histrogram!

[pgriz]

Well, after all that, went and had a look at the histogram of the picture... A little surprised. But this is a really good exercise.

 

[KmH]

But I don't see how it can be #2... what is creating the strong red mid-tone peak?

It's not all that strong (number of pixels) but it is fairly wide (range of luminosity). How about the brown grasses and the red brick buildings?

#5 has nothing that is bright on the right side of the histogram, which is where I would expect to see pixels recorded from the sunlit white parts of the photo.

Now that you mention it, I notice #2 has 3 red spikes and one spike is full right and so bright it's clipped.

 

[bazooka]

But I think it does... the right hand edge indicates that there is pure white clipping. Or am I seeing things? You're probably right though, even if there were tones clipping, there should be some highlight data there that is just short of clipping.

 

[KmH]

In the histogram white is actually all 3 of the primary colors red, green, and blue. There are none of those colors on the right of the #5 histogram.

Yellow is green and red, magenta is red and blue, and cyan is green and blue.

 

[480sparky42 41]

I will comment on this:

While you don't see any red in the photo, there IS a lot of red in it. Remember, the vast majority of colors in any image are made up of the three primary colors. So, while you may not see red as red, there is still a lot of red in the image.

Yes, the greens and blues are easy to spot...... now the mystery: Where's all the red?

 

[marmots]

there's a lot of red in the water, the flower heads, the brown areas of grass, and a little in the buildings, and the underside of the arch

 

[bazooka]

In the histogram white is actually all 3 of the primary colors red, green, and blue. There are none of those colors on the right of the #5 histogram.

Yellow is green and red, magenta is red and blue, and cyan is green and blue.

Which supports my point. The highlight (the bridge) is white, which would show as white on the histogram (RGB stacked). And #5 has a white spike on the right edge of the histogram. It's not much, but I think it might be enough to account for the area of the bridge. I'm not saying I'm right as I can't account for the empty 'mid-highlight', but there is definitely something clipping in #5.

 

[bazooka]

For the love of all that is good Sparky, please reveal the true histogram!!

 

[marmots]

you could cheat now that you have voted, if you really want to know

 

[bazooka]

Yup, I couldn't wait. I cheated.

 

[BigknockHawk]

Sparky, that is an AWESOME shot of the ped bridge. Have you taken one of it at night with it lit up?

 

[Ron Evers]

I did an after cheat as well & my Lightroom histogram does not match up with any of the posted ones. Could this be a colour profile thing?

 

[sm4him]

This is definitely a great idea; maybe I'll actually learn to really make sense of these things after all these years!

My initial vote was #5...then I started reading the comments, and I decided it was #4. No, #2. Wait. #1. #3, maybe.

I'm sticking with #5, because at least I'll have plenty of company if I'm wrong.

 

[480sparky42 41]

Sparky, that is an AWESOME shot of the ped bridge. Have you taken one of it at night with it lit up?

How's that?

 

[ph0enix]

I guessed wrong - #2.