Getting the white points right (on white subjects) during shoot and in post

[thelordofthelight]

When it comes to subjects with a lot of white tones in them, I find it a bit challenging to get the whites accurate. Let's take examples like egrets, pelicans or any other bird that predominantly has white feathers (or shades of whites). With the WYSIWYG viewfinders on the mirrorless, it is easy to not blow the highlights during the shoot but when it comes to post processing, I'd like to hear what you do/ how you do to get the whites accurate.

Of course, there are these scientific approaches like looking at the histogram and adjusting the levels, curves. I think the most common approach (in case of light room) is to hold the alt key and push the whites slider to a point where the whites are about to blow-up or just a point before. In capture one there is an exposure warning icon I use to do something similar.

Now the problem I face is, even when I do all of this the way it should be done, the whites do not look pleasing to my eyes and I end up bringing down the whites (either on the whites slider or using the curves tool). By doing so, there are times when I end up underexposing my images. Not sure if this is because I'm too sensitive to white tones or if it is the lit up monitor screens that's fooling my eyes to override what the histogram says (meaning it looks too bright because of the lit up digital displays and the same will look perfect when printed?) or if I'm missing anything that I should pay attention to while post processing.

What do you folks do to get your white birds perfectly exposed both during the shoot and during post-processing?

 

[kimball]

Now the problem I face is, even when I do all of this the way it should be done, the whites do not look pleasing to my eyes and I end up bringing down the whites (either on the whites slider or using the curves tool). By doing so, there are times when I end up underexposing my images. Not sure if this is because I'm too sensitive to white tones or if it is the lit up monitor screens that's fooling my eyes to override what the histogram says (meaning it looks too bright because of the lit up digital displays and the same will look perfect when printed?) or if I'm missing anything that I should pay attention to while post processing.

This almost sounds like a monitor brightness issue. How high is yours cranked up? Whenever I calibrate & profile my displays they end up at around 30-40% of their full brightness scale. In the past I was always shocked by how dim they were after calibrating. Now those levels seem normal to me.

Generally speaking there's no right or wrong answer though. Editing is subjective. If you don't yet fully trust your own judgment on whites, I'd suggest collecting a bunch of images with whites that you find pleasing and then really exploring their histograms.

 

[FB101]

When it comes to subjects with a lot of white tones in them, I find it a bit challenging to get the whites accurate. Let's take examples like egrets, pelicans or any other bird that predominantly has white feathers (or shades of whites). With the WYSIWYG viewfinders on the mirrorless, it is easy to not blow the highlights during the shoot but when it comes to post processing, I'd like to hear what you do/ how you do to get the whites accurate.

Of course, there are these scientific approaches like looking at the histogram and adjusting the levels, curves. I think the most common approach (in case of light room) is to hold the alt key and push the whites slider to a point where the whites are about to blow-up or just a point before. In capture one there is an exposure warning icon I use to do something similar.

Now the problem I face is, even when I do all of this the way it should be done, the whites do not look pleasing to my eyes and I end up bringing down the whites (either on the whites slider or using the curves tool). By doing so, there are times when I end up underexposing my images. Not sure if this is because I'm too sensitive to white tones or if it is the lit up monitor screens that's fooling my eyes to override what the histogram says (meaning it looks too bright because of the lit up digital displays and the same will look perfect when printed?) or if I'm missing anything that I should pay attention to while post processing.

What do you folks do to get your white birds perfectly exposed both during the shoot and during post-processing?

This is a complex problem that I run into all the time and it would be a very worthy topic for an @Steve dedicated in-depth video (hint, hint).

As others have mentioned its a combo of white balance, brightness and display- the brain doesn't like white that should be white but is looking "grey" but it is far less objectionable with a warmer white balance because sunset and sunrise scenes have typically lower highlight contrast and we read it as early or late light.

Add the complexity of the fact that screens (and printing materials) can't reproduce 100% of the gamut we work with (good screens come very close so that really shouldn't be as much of an issue) and you need to find the balance that works. I tend to not mind losing a bit of detail in bright white areas to make sure they look white and not grey and more importantly, I use the overexposure warning in LRc to ensure that those overcooked pixels (as much as I can avoid them) are only where I want them.
And honestly, I do most of the adjustment in PS because I find global adjustments often cause me too any issues I need to fix in PS afterwards anyway so why not do it right the first time around ?

 

[Rassie]

While shooting I expose such as not to blow the whites. Yes, this sometimes results in underexposing the image. A lot of that can be fixed in post processing by employing the shadows and highlights sliders. For me, three things go hand in hand when I edit: Highlights, shadows, and exposure. Usually between these three I can get the image properly exposed without blowing highlights or having too dark shadow areas. I also shoot RAW since it's much easier to control these three things during raw editing than trying to do it on a JPEG.

 

[bleirer]

It's a deep subject. I hope you get a lot of participation.

If you click and drag in the Lightroom histogram it's the same as moving the sliders. The middle, which corresponds to the exposure slider, moves the entire histogram brighter or darker. Next to the middle area, the highlights and shadows sliders overlap with and impact the areas next door. So moving highlights affects both whites and the right side of the middle and moving shadows impacts both blacks and the left side of the middle.

I find moving the highlights slider to the right and the shadows sliders to the left opens up the middle tones, making the brights brighter. I usually do it recursively, set the middle to where i like it, then slide the highlights right until i like how the bright parts of the image looks, and then move the whites slider left to pull the blinkies off the edge. In other words use the highlights slider to brighten the whites rather than the whites slider.

On the other side I move the shadows left until I like the shadows then pull the blacks right to open up shadows if desired. Then check the middle and repeat if needed. Returning to it and adjusting if I change anything else like curves or sharpening or dehaze or texture, etc.

A way to get a feel for it is to shoot a set of grayscale patches and visually hold the real card to view you picture of the card, for example the color checker passport includes one. If you shoot it in the same light as your scene, you have a reference for what is white in reality that you can hold up to your screen in good light but shielding the monitor from the light. Each patch would correspond to a certain value when you hover over it in Lightroom. If you set Lightroom to LAB (right click the histogram for a menu) you will see the how the whitest patch fits in to the rest of the tones and how it corresponds to the rest. The third from the right would be 50 or middle gray, the lightest on the left around 96, the blackest on the right around 21. From left to right rounded values are 96, 81, 66, 50, 36, 21.

 

[Viathelens]

In digital photography the old (revised) saying goes, "Shoot for the highlights and process for the shadows." This is the reverse of film. Digital sensors do not take to highlights as film did, so it is much easier to blow out highlights. I normally try to shoot this way, especially with something that is large and white, i.e., egret. When I process I first move the white and black sliders in lightroom so that I get all of the available tones in my image and then I begin to work with the image, using the highlight and shadows sliders to correct the image in general. I only move the exposure tool after I use these tools as exposure adds overall brightness or darkness to an image. I use the histogram, my eyes, and my intent as a visual roadmap to processing. If there is a very small portion of a white area I use the brush and local edits in LrC or the clone or "band-aid" correction tools in PS. I think, as others have said, it may your screen or even how light your room is: I work in a room that is more dark than light and do not have a bright monitor. In any case, prior to printing, if that is your intent, print a small print to determine how it looks and maybe ask someone else what they think as well. As you know, there is no correcting for an image with large areas of blown-out highlights so taking care while shooting is essential to success in processing.

 

[arbitrage]

Whites are tricky and no two white birds are created equal

WYSIWYG has certainly made things easier to not cook the whites while shooting. However, you are still seeing a jpeg image and it is important to have a look at what your Picture Profile (or whatever each manufacturers term is) is set at even though you are shooting RAW. Setting a neutral profile for the jpeg preview in the RAW file will get a closer representation to the RAW but still imperfect. I've found the most effective in camera technique is the Sony live Zebras in stills mode but that still needs a custom setting and still needs a neutral picture profile.

But I realize your question is not really about the in camera process of exposing the whites properly and more on the post processing. I find some white birds can be made to look very nice in the whites with a little adjustment to Highlights. Bald Eagles seem to accept the highlight slider without much issue. The trick is not to create grey whites as I find that looks unnatural.

Last year I started shooting a lot of Belted Kingfisher shots and I noticed that I couldn't control the whites around the neck no matter what. I spoke to a friend about this. He tried also and we found that even an underexposure of 5 stops didn't allow any detail to show in the whites when they were being lit by full sun. The Sony Zebras would always show on them and there was no detail to be had in post processing. I assume this is something to do with the way these feathers reflect light. I just had to leave them looking bright white without detail which wasn't too big of a deal as they don't make up a large part of the birds. That leads to another thing where as birds with just some white and a lot of dark I find may be best just left to let the white clip if a proper exposure leaves the darks way underexposed.

Then back on the computer we do have the issue with calibrated monitors versus what the general public has their monitor set to and is viewing your image with. If you have a calibrated display that is usually much dimmer after calibration than most people have their monitors set at and you get the whites perfect on your display, they will look blown to all the non-calibrated viewers out on the web. Hard to win. If you are printing that is different.

 

[thelordofthelight]

Thank you all for your responses. Right now, I just use my laptop (HP Zbook workstation that comes with a pre calibrated screen) as I'm in my hometown ever since Covid. The display isn't one of those like on the macbooks/ipads that get crazy bright so I just use it at 100% brightnness. I think I will have to seriously consider calibrating my display (s) as a lot of you recommend. I normally process my images and then transfer it to 2 or 3 other devices (android, ios and a normal consumer grade PC) just to make sure nothing looks too weird. The reason I do this is, as Arbitrage mentioned, most of the folks that look at the images are not using calibrated displays anyway.

Let us take the below image for example, this is a screen grab from capture one pro. The red dot on the bird is the area that I find a bit too bright to my liking and when I use the curve point tool I can see the whites are not blown up at all, as indicated in the histogram/ curves panel. However, when I bring down the highlights/ whites, I can clearly see finer details on the feather. So what you are all pointing to is that if I calibrate my display, then my default brightness will come down quite a bit and then what the histogram shows will match what my eyes like?

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[thelordofthelight]

I very rarely use the sliders and prefer to use curves tool. Even with curves, I set 2 white points, 1 mid point and 2 dark points and then try to selectively tweak specific portions of the curve. For normal subjects I don't have much of a problem and I also do something similar to what you explained i.e. set the mid tones first and then tweak the shadows and highlights. With subjects like the one I posted above, I find it challenging.

It's a deep subject. I hope you get a lot of participation.

If you click and drag in the Lightroom histogram it's the same as moving the sliders. The middle, which corresponds to the exposure slider, moves the entire histogram brighter or darker. Next to the middle area, the highlights and shadows sliders overlap with and impact the areas next door. So moving highlights affects both whites and the right side of the middle and moving shadows impacts both blacks and the left side of the middle.

I find moving the highlights slider to the right and the shadows sliders to the left opens up the middle tones, making the brights brighter. I usually do it recursively, set the middle to where i like it, then slide the highlights right until i like how the bright parts of the image looks, and then move the whites slider left to pull the blinkies off the edge. In other words use the highlights slider to brighten the whites rather than the whites slider.

On the other side I move the shadows left until I like the shadows then pull the blacks right to open up shadows if desired. Then check the middle and repeat if needed. Returning to it and adjusting if I change anything else like curves or sharpening or dehaze or texture, etc.

A way to get a feel for it is to shoot a set of grayscale patches and visually hold the real card to view you picture of the card, for example the color checker passport includes one. If you shoot it in the same light as your scene, you have a reference for what is white in reality that you can hold up to your screen in good light but shielding the monitor from the light. Each patch would correspond to a certain value when you hover over it in Lightroom. If you set Lightroom to LAB (right click the histogram for a menu) you will see the how the whitest patch fits in to the rest of the tones and how it corresponds to the rest. The third from the right would be 50 or middle gray, the lightest on the left around 96, the blackest on the right around 21. From left to right rounded values are 96, 81, 66, 50, 36, 21.

 

[thelordofthelight]

Ditto! I also dial in at least 2/3rd to at times 1.5 stops of negative exposure compensation when it comes to photographing birds with a lot of white feathers. I have this weird problem where I do all the adjustments and everything looks perfect and then when I take a look at the same image after a couple of days I wonder if that's what it looked like when I processed it LoL. So, I never post an image the same day I process and I wait for a couple of days to ensure I like it later.

The struggle is real. I tend to use auto iso, -.3 to -.7 EC on birds with white feathers on sunny days with zebras and/or blinkies turned on. Then in post process use highlight, shadow, and HSL sliders plus the elliptical tool.

Probably not the best way but that's how I deal with it.

 

[splatbass]

The struggle is real. I tend to use auto iso, -.3 to -.7 EC on birds with white feathers on sunny days with zebras and/or blinkies turned on. Then in post process use highlight, shadow, and HSL sliders plus the elliptical tool.

Probably not the best way but that's how I deal with it.

I do it pretty much the same way.

 

[kimball]

Thank you all for your responses. Right now, I just use my laptop (HP Zbook workstation that comes with a pre calibrated screen) as I'm in my hometown ever since Covid. The display isn't one of those like on the macbooks/ipads that get crazy bright so I just use it at 100% brightnness. I think I will have to seriously consider calibrating my display (s) as a lot of you recommend. I normally process my images and then transfer it to 2 or 3 other devices (android, ios and a normal consumer grade PC) just to make sure nothing looks too weird. The reason I do this is, as Arbitrage mentioned, most of the folks that look at the images are not using calibrated displays anyway.

Let us take the below image for example, this is a screen grab from capture one pro. The red dot on the bird is the area that I find a bit too bright to my liking and when I use the curve point tool I can see the whites are not blown up at all, as indicated in the histogram/ curves panel. However, when I bring down the highlights/ whites, I can clearly see finer details on the feather. So what you are all pointing to is that if I calibrate my display, then my default brightness will come down quite a bit and then what the histogram shows will match what my eyes like?

Editing on a laptop screen is pretty brutal. I'd encourage you to get a reasonably priced photo-specific external monitor. It'll make a night and day difference.

Either way, I'd also just try turning your brightness down first. No need to overcomplicate things by introducing calibration & profiling just yet. Maybe turn your brightness down to half or 2/3's of the screen's maximum brightness. Then walk away from the computer for 20-30 minutes. When you return, make sure the room you're in is dim and has no direct sunlight at all and no really bright lights near the screen. Then browse the web for 30-60 minutes. Get used to the new brightness. It may feel too dark at first, but you'll likely get used to it. Then revisit your photos and see what you see.

Just as a single data point, on my calibrated display, your example photo looks pretty underexposed to me, and also doesn't appear to my eyes to have anything near an actual white point.

Of course that's just my subjective opinion though. Always remember that there's no such thing as an objectively "correct" exposure. For example, if you shot that on an overcast day and wanted to evoke a darker mood, then maybe your editing choices for that photo would be appropriate. Not every image should have a black point, perfectly centered midtones, and a white point. These are creative decisions to be sure, with no absolute right or wrong.

 

[thelordofthelight]

So here's what I did. The first screenshot shows the histogram for the entire image and it is more towards the left as the BG is a bit dark. It was an overcast day and inside the forest so I think the histogram represents what I actually saw.

I just created a layer with only the whites on the bird's body and the second screenshot shows the histogram for the same and now it is more towards the right although it doesn't go towards the extreme right.

Does the second histogram indicate I should be moving my whites even further towards the right?

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[Ralph]

When it comes to subjects with a lot of white tones in them, I find it a bit challenging to get the whites accurate. Let's take examples like egrets, pelicans or any other bird that predominantly has white feathers (or shades of whites). With the WYSIWYG viewfinders on the mirrorless, it is easy to not blow the highlights during the shoot but when it comes to post processing, I'd like to hear what you do/ how you do to get the whites accurate.

Of course, there are these scientific approaches like looking at the histogram and adjusting the levels, curves. I think the most common approach (in case of light room) is to hold the alt key and push the whites slider to a point where the whites are about to blow-up or just a point before. In capture one there is an exposure warning icon I use to do something similar.

Now the problem I face is, even when I do all of this the way it should be done, the whites do not look pleasing to my eyes and I end up bringing down the whites (either on the whites slider or using the curves tool). By doing so, there are times when I end up underexposing my images. Not sure if this is because I'm too sensitive to white tones or if it is the lit up monitor screens that's fooling my eyes to override what the histogram says (meaning it looks too bright because of the lit up digital displays and the same will look perfect when printed?) or if I'm missing anything that I should pay attention to while post processing.

What do you folks do to get your white birds perfectly exposed both during the shoot and during post-processing?

I agree with Rassie. I underexpose by 1/3 to 0.7 of a stop. Then I adjust with the shadow, Exposure and highlight sliders. This works well with matrix metering. If you use spot metering than your approach will differ.

 

[RockvilleBob]

I have found whites to be a problem on various birds. I played around with the Z9 and 500mm with 2x on a Kingfisher. This is a small crop (less than 10%) and I had difficulty with the whites around the neck. Using FastRawReview the raw image showed 0% over-exposed yet there was little in the white around the neck.

I tried various alternatives and found that using Photoshop Image/Adjustments/ "Shadows/Highlights" with the advanced option gave me the best results. I did use this with a new Smart Object Layer
I got the idea from this post

Restoring Hidden Detail With Shadows/Highlights In Photoshop

In this Photoshop tutorial, learn how to bring out hidden detail in the darkest and lightest areas of your image with a Shadows/Highlights adjustment!

www.photoshopessentials.com

I feel I did get some improvement in the neck area.
As an aside the Z9 seems kind to TC's. Cropping might be better in most images but you need something to work with, just 500 would have been a extreme crop

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[thelordofthelight]

I use Capture One pro and one of my contacts had asked me to explore the luma range tool and i was playing with it yesterday and find it extremely useful. After some study I'm finding that I have a problem (may be subjective preference) when the white tones go above 235. The luma range tool helps to precisely select the white points above a certain threshold say 235 and then create a mask for just the selected tones. I can then bring down the harsh whites to 235/240 levels that look more pleasing to my eyes. Likewise I am able to also select the white areas that are more towards grey tones and then move them towards right. I tried this on a couple of images and am happy so far.