Overexposing in camera and pulling back in post?

[eric-holmes]

I finally me a local photog and he actually knows about aperture and exposure techniques. He doesn't just shoot on auto. After talking for awhile, he mentioned that while shooting, he likes to overexposed by 1-1 2/3 stops and the. Bring the picture back down in post. He says that this allows for better detail in the shadows, less magenta in the skin tones and less noise in the picture overall. He says that he doesn't use the recovery slider but only uses the exposure slider to bring the picture back.

I think I understand why the picture has less noise. But, has anyone used or currently use this technique?

 

[Christie Photo]

... he likes to overexposed by 1-1 2/3 stops and the. Bring the picture back down in post. He says that this allows for better detail in the shadows, less magenta in the skin tones and less noise in the picture overall.

I have to wonder... is he really "overexposing?" It just might be he's reading the highlights and adjusting that to expose for the shadows.

-Pete

 

[Overread36]

The method is called "Exposing to the right" (that will get you a load of google results). The idea is that you expose so that you've the most light data in the shot that is possible, without fully overexposing the shot. That means (as you view a photo histogram) that you expose so that you've as much of the bar on the right side of the chart as you can without actually hitting the full right hand side (because if you fully overexpose the camera will only record white data, with no details to recover from).

The idea is that with digital sensors the more light you have to work with the more you can do and the less noise you'll have overall. Of course you can't always expose this way because of limitations in the scene and the lighting, but its an "ideal" concept you can put into your shooting to try and ensure teh best results.

 

[Village Idiot]

It's possible. You have to shoot RAW though. I don't do it a lot though, as if you're shooting a lot of photos, it can be a pain to do that to every one of them. And if you do blow out a section on the photo by accident, you can't recover it.

 

[Big Mike]

Expose Right

 

[Village Idiot]

... he likes to overexposed by 1-1 2/3 stops and the. Bring the picture back down in post. He says that this allows for better detail in the shadows, less magenta in the skin tones and less noise in the picture overall.

I have to wonder... is he really "overexposing?" It just might be he's reading the highlights and adjusting that to expose for the shadows.

-Pete

It really is overexposing. With RAW files, it may appear that an area is blown and unrecoverable even when it's possible to bring it back by dropping the exposure in post.

 

[Christie Photo]

It really is overexposing.

I get it. I'm merely suggesting that a different metering technique can suggest the exposure is proper to begin with. See what I'm saying?

-Pete

 

[KmH]

I wouldn't recommend using that technique.

I recommend getting your information from a known expert source, like:
Real World Camera Raw with Adobe Photoshop CS5

The first chapter "Exploiting The Digital Negative" covers how to use all of the bit depth your camera Raw files provide. What bit depth are your Raw files? 12-bit or 14-bit?

Correct exposure with digital means keeping the highlights as close to blowing out, without actually doing so, as possible. Let the shadows take care of themselves.

Film is just the opposite - expose for the shadows and let the highlights take care of themselves,. That sounds like what your "local photog [sic]" is doing.

 

[eric-holmes]

My D90 shoots 12 bit raw. I can understand the advantages/disadvantages of both. With exposing to the right you introduce less noise and with properly exposing you can keep your highlights in check.

sic?

 

[KmH]

sic?

(sic) – when added just after a quote or reprinted text, indicates that the passage is just as it appears from its original source.

 

[mikehaugen]

I wouldn't recommend using that technique.

I recommend getting your information from a known expert source, like:
Real World Camera Raw with Adobe Photoshop CS5

The first chapter "Exploiting The Digital Negative" covers how to use all of the bit depth your camera Raw files provide. What bit depth are your Raw files? 12-bit or 14-bit?

Correct exposure with digital means keeping the highlights as close to blowing out, without actually doing so, as possible. Let the shadows take care of themselves.

Film is just the opposite - expose for the shadows and let the highlights take care of themselves,. That sounds like what your "local photog [sic]" is doing.

This is interesting KMH, thank you for this.

I was told the opposite when I started in digital. I was told that with digital it was better to underexpose than overexpose since digital tended to lose more detail in highlight, and that with film it would be preferred to overexpose than underexpose. Just goes to show that you can never take any advice without further research and just going and trying it out.

Though I have read about and tried some of the above exposure techniques (exposing to right using histogram), and that is where the confusion set it.

 

[Forkie]

I've done it. Mostly by accident...

 

[timlair]

Same here. Which would probably explain the bad results haha

 

[eric-holmes]

Expose Right

Your thoughts?

 

[DerekSalem]

I've tried it but never really saw the point. If you're exposing to the right you have a strong possibility of losing details in the highlights. Normally, when shooting in RAW, it's very possible to bring detail back into those areas...but if you're not extremely careful you could blow out the highlights a bit too much and there won't actually be any detail to recover. At that point you've completely lost the picture.

It's better to expose for the scene and get a good rounding of detail (from both shadows and highlights) than just to expose for one or the other and hope the other looks good. Plus it reduces the amount of PP by ever-so-little