White. Why not?

[Dmitri]

I know why we don't want clipping while taking a photo, as we don't want to lose any possible detail unless we specifically want to lose it (high key for example).

But when I'm editing in LR I am very careful to use my recovery slider so there are minimal white areas and I started wondering - why am I doing this? If the area is supposed to be white (for example snow) and I don't care about any detail (for example, sun shining off snow) - why am I bothering to make sure it's just below clipping?

Does it really matter when printed if its been recovered or not?

(1:11am and I'm tired, sorry if it doesn't make as much sense as I hope it does)

Thanks.

 

[Forkie]

But snow has a lot of detail in it. Snow is made of crystals and if you get it right, can look stunning with the sun glistening off them. If it was a blank white space, you wouldn't see any hills, bumps, and lumps in the snow.

White-washed buildings always have some sort of texture which you can see because of tiny shadows created by the imperfections of the paint or render - if they were pure, blinding white you'd have no depth or shape to the subject.

Even a blank piece of white A4 paper isn't a pure blank block of white, you can see its texture.

Even on the whitest of white things, light is scattered when it reflects back to your eyes, which is how you see depth, shape and texture. If it didn't, all you would see would be a featureless block of white, which would look odd and not particularly pleasant.

 

[KenC]

This ^^^, and also remember that photography is not reality. You have to make an image that looks good.

 

[480sparky39 38]

If you think white needs to be pure white, here's a pix I took of a snowbank in the noonday sun:































Pretty boring, isn't it?

.

 

[ann]

:lmao::lmao::thumbup:

 

[Big Mike]

unless we specifically want to lose it (high key for example).

Firstly, the term 'high key' is often improperly given to images that are simply over exposed (possibly blown out).
Proper 'high key' photos are where you match the clothing/accessories to a bright background in order to focus attention on the subject. There doesn't need to be (and really shouldn't be) any over exposure or blown out areas.

As for clipping....it's totally up to you. In a digital image, anything less than 255 really isn't true white....so if you want something to be white, it should be very close to 255 (right edge of the histogram). But, very few things are devoid of any texture & detail, and if you want to show that in your photo, you may have to expose it to be less than pure white.

 

[Dmitri]

Thanks Mike, the only one who actually addressed the question. :thumbsup: So there is no reason not to make something pure white, like it comes out weird in the printed photo or so.

(Also for the record, I know the difference between true high key [everything over 128] and sliding the exposure slider way up and calling it high key. It actually annoys me when people do that, but it was just the only thing I could think of for an example lol)

 

[Robin Usagani]

I dont mind clipping. I back lit my portrait a lot without flash.

 

[Dmitri]

ok I think the problem may have been that I used snow as an example, so some people got hung up on that. So here is a better example. In this photo, is there any reason NOT to make the background pure white? I think Mike and Schwetty say its ok if my lightroom turns bright red when I press J, it will print just fine?

 

[Robin Usagani]

Just remember clipping is pure white. There is an apparent transition between white highlights and pure white. As long as it is natural, it wont look bad. Sometime unexperienced editor use white brush to delete stuff instead of cloning on the highlights. Sometimes this will show on photos and monitor because it goes from really light yellowish white to pure white and you can see the brush storkes.

 

[Robin Usagani]

One way to see if it looks bad or not is to look at your monitor in extreme angle. Stand up and look down.

 

[Dmitri]

Cool, thanks Schwetty

 

[DiskoJoe]

I know why we don't want clipping while taking a photo, as we don't want to lose any possible detail unless we specifically want to lose it (high key for example).

But when I'm editing in LR I am very careful to use my recovery slider so there are minimal white areas and I started wondering - why am I doing this? If the area is supposed to be white (for example snow) and I don't care about any detail (for example, sun shining off snow) - why am I bothering to make sure it's just below clipping?

Does it really matter when printed if its been recovered or not?

(1:11am and I'm tired, sorry if it doesn't make as much sense as I hope it does)

Thanks.

print that photo and see if you still think the same thing. if you like the print then all is well. if not then back to LR.

 

[clanthar]

I think your leaf photo is a special case and I think it's fine. There's allways room for exceptions and special cases. There are things in our photos that should reach RGB 255: reflections off of chrome or glass or water for example, light sources like lampposts at night. There are also things in our photos that we call white that should never reach RGB 255: puffy white clouds, wedding dresses, tee-shirts, the whites of their eyes, any diffuse white highlight should stay just below RGB 255. I have the white eyedropper in my copy of Photoshop set for RGB 242 (my safety value) once there I'll generally ease it up to RGB 248.

Joe