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Position:Home>Visual Arts> Is it ever a good idea to purposely under or over expose your pictures?Question: Is it ever a good idea to purposely under or over expose your pictures!? I've been playing with underexposure to make certain backgrounds fade to black and add more contrast when I turn the brightness up in post!. Is this a good idea or should I always shoot for correct exposure and just play with the contrast in post!. If not, is there any use for under or over exposure!?
Here's one of my underexposed pictures to demonstrate sort of the effect I'm going for!. http://i39!.photobucket!.com/albums/e169/m!.!.!.Www@QuestionHome@Com Best Answer - Chosen by Asker: Sure!. There are reasons why you should!. In the film world, the technique you are using would be considered 'pushing' the film!. When pushing film, you would underexpose by a known number of stops and then increase the development to increase the density of the neg!. The downside to this is increased grain and higher contrast!. Conversely there is 'pulling' film where you overexpose the neg and shorten development time!. This yields less grain and less contrast!. Both have their place!. In addition to the types of over and under exposures described above - you may purposefully chose to use a different exposure than your meter gives you when you are photographing the beach, snow, a person with very light skin or a person with very dark skin!. You may also choose to underexpose a scene to capture detail in a small part of the scene or vice versa!. In your case, you are doing something similar to pushing film - you're letting less light hit the sensor on the digital camera!. You will see more noise in the shadows and will be forced to boost contrast to gain your highlights back!. You might find that you are better off exposing for sufficient highlight detail and then using levels inside of Photoshop to adjust your midtones and shadows to the level you want them!. That said, you are the artist!. How you choose to make your image is completely up to you! Good Luck!Www@QuestionHome@Com its all personal choiceWww@QuestionHome@Com You are right on!. Exposure is in the eye of the beholder!. There are plenty of situations where over and under exposure is desirable!. Your example is one of them!. When I sent photos in for publishing, I often sent in an overexposed image because (in the old days) ink on paper tended to bleed and; therefore, the finished image was darker than the original!. It was common to under expose and overdevelop pictures (push processing) in order to take action pictures in low light; or over expose and under develop pictures (pull processing)or to get more detail in shadows!.Www@QuestionHome@Com Absolutely!.!.!.some cameras even make it easy for you with built in exposure bracketing!. In your sample photos "correct" exposure would have blown out the blossoms!. It was the right decision!. If you want detail on backlit subjects you have to over expose!. The results will generally be better than post processing alone!. (though RAW users may not agree)!.Www@QuestionHome@Com Aesthetically over or under exposure is in the eye of the artist!. And we will leave that up to you!. But there is a scientific answer to your question, as well, in the way Digital sensors record image details!. Without boring you with the logarithmic equations, here is the summary!.!.!. Sensors record exponentially more information in the darkest areas of the exposure than the lightest!. And they can capture a larger range of shades then your typical scene will have!. Take a look at your histogram of the exposures and ensure there is no truncation of data at the white or black end of the spectrum!. (Truncation is where the data points are pushed against the sides of the graph and not slowly tapering off!.) If you tend to "underexposure" the image (without truncation) you will actually have more data points with which to alter in post processing to achieve the effects you are looking for!.Www@QuestionHome@Com It's all about what you like and what is pleasing to your eye!. If you like the look of it then that is all that matters!.Www@QuestionHome@Com Yes, it is a good idea!. Bracket your shots above and below the recommended metering!. This lets you correct exposure problems such as blown-out highlights and muddy shadows in editing!. (It's also the principle behind HDR!.) As for your sample pic, it just looks dull -- maybe goosing the contrast would help!. VWww@QuestionHome@Com |
