What Does a Histogram Tell Us? Basix
Tutorial Details
- Program: Adobe Photoshop
- Difficulty: Beginner
- Estimated Completion Time: 9 Minutes
Final Product What You'll Be Creating
Are you new to Photoshop? Have you been trying to teach yourself the basics of Photoshop but have found the amount of educational material available on the net a bit overwhelming? As the world’s #1 Photoshop site, we’ve published a lot of tutorials. So many, in fact, that we understand how overwhelming our site may be to those of you who may be brand new to Photoshop. This tutorial is part of a 25-part video series demonstrating everything you will need to know to start working in Photoshop.
Photoshop Basix, by Adobe Certified Expert and Instructor, Martin Perhiniak includes 25 short video tutorials, around 5 – 10 minutes in length that will teach you all the fundamentals of working with Photoshop. Today’s tutorial, Part 5: What Does a Histogram Tell Us will explain the Histogram panel; specifically the Shadow/Highlights and Levels adjustments. Let’s get started!
Enjoyed this Post?
Subscribe to our RSS Feed, Follow us on Twitter or simply recommend us to friends and colleagues!
By Martin Perhiniak
Join our newsletter!
Create a Tutorial, Get Paid!
Have something to teach the world? Want to earn money doing it? Tutorials, screencasts, and articles published here on Psdtuts+ are largely contributed by readers just like you! We'll pay you great money for good content. Find Out More
nice series
This entry is part 12 of 5 in the series Photoshop Basix ?
I think you mean part 5 of 12?
That is really useful information! I have so much things to learn!
Thanks for this. Learning more on PS every day.
Thanks for this tutorial, very informative. The tip about showing the heatmap of clipped colors was new to me!
thanks for this series i’ve gotta relearn Photoshop from scratch as i haven’t used it in quite a while
Thanks for the Tutorial, Seen the Histogram but never knew what it really did.
Thank you very much for this lesson!
Nice. Love those tutorials, very useful as I’m a big noob. But in this one, I don’t really understand the clipping. What is that? I mean except two big bars on the sides of the histogram? I read stuff about, but I can’t get a simple explanation to understand…
“Clipping” means that the color value of a pixel has either been pushed to pure black (0, 0, 0 RGB) or pure white (255, 255, 255). When a large area of pixels is clipped, it contains no detail. Hope that helps.
thx, it does!
awesome this is best for me learning
Very good! Thank you.
Thanks a lot Ioswl for your professional answer!
I’m so glad that you all enjoy learning from this series. Thanks a lot for your comments!
Good tutorial, I like the fist part.
I would prefer for the last picture to not “sacrifice” big parts of nuances.
You get 26, 0, 225. I see more something like 0, 0.90, 237 (0.90 with ithe grey arrow, the middle tons for the contrast).
I also use the Option (Alt) key on the arrows but I stop immediately when I see the saturated colors coming.
I prefer to use the curves for the middle tons and get a better contrast with this tool, but it’s not the point of this tutorial.
This tutorial is more appropriated for “normal” pictures, so careful with this technique on a snowy pictures.
Such a misunderstood area, the Histogram. Great job of writing up a door-opener on this. Maybe less people will look at me funny in future when I tell them that their photograph is “bleeding”!
Great series Just what I wanted
waiting the next tuts
Nice video, thanks.
I always wonder if, there is any “filter” or “plug-in” that can help me sorting photos based on histogram info, instead of file name, date, modified date etc. , anyone knows? thanks a lot on this!
Hello Martin, thank you for your tutorials.
I was wondering when to use Levels and when to use Shadow/Highlights? Is this a personal preference or is it absolutely necessary to use the one or the other in a certain project?
@Adam Fairhead: bleeding means clipping?
thanks… nice video…
What kind of accent is that? Scottish?
Hahaha! I do hope this comment was made in jest.
He is from Hungary.
yes, it is a Scottish/Hungarian accent.
thank you very much, indeed fundamental ;)
like the hofbräuhaus münchen cap! ;)
Wonderful video tutorial.
I’ve been using Photoshop for years and it’s just refreshing to re-learn these basics. Thank you.
small question- What’s the difference between “cached” and “uncached” with the histogram? I don’t see much difference, but I’d like to understand the terminology at least.
(And thanks much for these videos! It’s almost refreshing to find such clear & simple explanations of these basic concepts and tools.)
Awesome series!! I like them a lot!! They’re sooo usefull!!
Thaaaank you!! ^__^
Excellent Tutorials… Please make other video’s As soon as Posible :) Thanks.
Once again thanks for providing such tutorial in your valuable time.
Thanks
Maran
thank you so much, very helpful.. :)
thank you very much ! that was helpful :):):):)
how do we get rid of the long line on the highlight section of the histogram if we have one?
histograms are very useful but many times forgotten by anybody
This is a really nice video. Thanks for the information.
That was really hlpfull…
awesome vid
Thanks for introducing me to Shadow/Highlights! I’m saved from Levels limitation! <3
great tutorials,very simple to understand and very instructive…can you make a tutorial on colouring hand-drawn sketches such as manga or comics.., i need help for this session…
you are the best of all martin ….you are awesome!!!
Thank you for this tutorials! I’m a graphic design student and i believe i’m learning more from you than from my teacher! :)
You have now idea how greatful i am! :)
I called up one of my photos as I was viewing this tutorial and put the lesson to use! I was really able to improve one of my photographs. Thank you!
I was wondering why I didn’t get a “heat image” while holding alt but it only works in RGB mode, doesn’t it (I was in CMYK)?