Why RAW?

[Arthur Morris]

One of the main reasons to use RAW capture 100% of the time is because when you screw up you often will not wind up screwed as you would if you had been using JPEG capture. In this pane is a screen capture showing lots of apparent clipping....

I had been photographing pelicans in flight in AV mode with lots of plus compensation set. When I saw this bird smile I followed my own advice and made two images without worrying about the exposure.....

[Arthur Morris]

When my friend Gary Meredith saw this on the back of the camera, he and others stated that "that much clipping could not be recovered." I begged to differ :)

The image was created with the Canon 800mm f/5.6L IS lens with the EOS-1D Mark IV. ISO 400. Evaluative metering +2 2/3 stops: 1/80 sec. at f/5.6.

I followed my own ACR workflow advice in the ER here.

And voila, a perfectly exposed image with no clipped highlights was the result.

Don't be shy; all comments welcome.

[Tom Graham]

"...showing lots of apparent clipping...."
So the camera is "wrong" by showing it clipped? The camera has a different definition of "clipping" than I do? The definition perhaps being that clipping will occur if camera gives you only jpg output?
Or, you can't trust the camera when it shows clipping? That doesn't sound good, what use is the clipping indication then? Lots of ramifications here for me about how to interpret and how useful is such camera "help".

Tom

[WIlliam Maroldo]

Thanks for the demonstration Arthur. I've been aware of this for quite a while now; and it is not surprising to me how much what a camera histogram (or ACR histogram) indicates as being clipped can be recovered. There is an important caveate, at least in my experience. The degree of recovery of clipped highlights is dependent on the contrast of the light; low contrast (soft) light allows a considerable recovery of detail from histogram indicated clipping, high contrast (harsh or hard) light allows very little, and clipped highlights are often toast.
What this means is that in high contrast light clipped highlight blinkies need to be avoided, on overcast or cloudy days, you can get away with them as long as not too severe. I think camera or RAW converter histograms are set up for the worst case scenerio, which would be high contrast light, and in that case they are accurate. Just my take. regards~Bill

[Desmond Chan]

"...showing lots of apparent clipping...."
So the camera is "wrong" by showing it clipped?

The camera is not wrong showing the clipping/blinkies. What you see on the LCD is a jpeg verson of the raw file. When the blinkies shown depends on which color space you set in your camera, which affects jpeg file.

Or, you can't trust the camera when it shows clipping?

How much over-exposed areas you can recover depends on the dynamic range of your sensor.

[Desmond Chan]

The degree of recovery of clipped highlights is dependent on the contrast of the light [snip]

It depends on the dynamic range of your scene and how the sensor of your camera handles it. The blinkies will appear the same way whether it's one-stop over or tens stop over.

[Chris Martinez]

Wow!!! Looking at how much red there was I would have figured the blowout would have been pretty extensive. As a result I too would have assumed it was too far gone. And to think how many photos I have deleted thinking they were "screwed" :o

Thanks for enlightening me! Pun intended :p

[Kaustubh Deshpande]

Agree with Desmond. In-camera LCD is showing a 8-bit jpg. So whatever looks clipped and devoid of detail there might not be so in the 14-bit RAW file.

I actually prefer to see a few blinkies as that tells me that I dont need to look at the histogram...unless there is a specific channel that I need to look into.

This is still very enlightening because Artie is not showing us the jpg but the actual RAW file. Artie, is your software set up to show the red only for value 255 or a range like '>245'? If all those are 255, then the recovery is quite remarkable. Can we attribute that to the quality of 1DmarkIV raw file? I have always read that the RAW files coming out of pro cameras take pulling & pushing better than those coming out of the prosumer cameras( like my 40D).

[Arthur Morris]

"...showing lots of apparent clipping...."So the camera is "wrong" by showing it clipped? The camera has a different definition of "clipping" than I do? The definition perhaps being that clipping will occur if camera gives you only jpg output?

Or, you can't trust the camera when it shows clipping? That doesn't sound good, what use is the clipping indication then? Lots of ramifications here for me about how to interpret and how useful is such camera "help". Tom

Flashing highlights are warnings designed to help us. So there is no right or wrong, just what is. Had this been a JPEG it would have gone into the trash can.... As only the brightest whites were flashing, I figured that I would have a chance to save it. So I tried.

I view flashing highlights as an aid: I actually try to have a few flashing pixels in every image especially those with dark tones. That way I am maximizing shadow detail. I guess that I have become a glass half full kind of guy.

[Arthur Morris]

Thanks for the demonstration Arthur. I've been aware of this for quite a while now; and it is not surprising to me how much what a camera histogram (or ACR histogram) indicates as being clipped can be recovered. There is an important caveate, at least in my experience. The degree of recovery of clipped highlights is dependent on the contrast of the light; low contrast (soft) light allows a considerable recovery of detail from histogram indicated clipping, high contrast (harsh or hard) light allows very little, and clipped highlights are often toast.
What this means is that in high contrast light clipped highlight blinkies need to be avoided, on overcast or cloudy days, you can get away with them as long as not too severe. I think camera or RAW converter histograms are set up for the worst case scenerio, which would be high contrast light, and in that case they are accurate. Just my take. regards~Bill

While I agree with you Bill I will never hesitate to try to recover flashing highlights if the image is a good one. Denise had an oystercatcher mating image that looked toasted and it was made on a sunny day. I urged her to try it and voila! She loved and posted the end result.

[Arthur Morris]

It depends on the dynamic range of your scene and how the sensor of your camera handles it. The blinkies will appear the same way whether it's one-stop over or tens stop over.

Yeah, blinkies can only blink but at ten stops over everything would be flashing :)

[Arthur Morris]

Wow!!! Looking at how much red there was I would have figured the blowout would have been pretty extensive. As a result I too would have assumed it was too far gone. And to think how many photos I have deleted thinking they were "screwed" :o

Thanks for enlightening me! Pun intended :p

YAW. Lesson learned!

[Arthur Morris]

Agree with Desmond. In-camera LCD is showing a 8-bit jpg. So whatever looks clipped and devoid of detail there might not be so in the 14-bit RAW file.

I actually prefer to see a few blinkies as that tells me that I dont need to look at the histogram...unless there is a specific channel that I need to look into.

This is still very enlightening because Artie is not showing us the jpg but the actual RAW file. Artie, is your software set up to show the red only for value 255 or a range like '>245'? If all those are 255, then the recovery is quite remarkable. Can we attribute that to the quality of 1DmarkIV raw file? I have always read that the RAW files coming out of pro cameras take pulling & pushing better than those coming out of the prosumer cameras( like my 40D).

KD. ACR is set at the defaults. And I do not know what they are... Can you tell me how to check? As for the MIV question I simply do not know. Remember, I am a practical person not a technical one :)

[Kaustubh Deshpande]

KD. ACR is set at the defaults. And I do not know what they are... Can you tell me how to check?

I am sorry Artie, can't help you with this one. I've never used ACR. In DPP, one can customize the highlights/shadow warnings by going to the 'view settings' inside the preferences. If you set highlight to 245, then all values above 245 will flash. Similar setting is there for shadows.

ACR should also have a preferences section like any other software. Otherwise, Google is your best friend :-)

[Arthur Morris]

Thanks KD. I am pretty sure that the warning would come in at 255. But my main thrust is "If it ain't broke, don't fix it :)

[Ákos Lumnitzer]

I use ACR all the time during conversion and I too, am capable of regularly recovering images +1 or even +2 (even more) overexposed with plenty of blinking reds!!!

ACR shows the image as you had captured it, so if it is blown, it's blown. Exposure slider is at 0 and you can go back to -4 (I think from memory) in CS5, not that I'd ever bother to overexpose by +4 stops. To me shooting RAW for nature photogarphy is a no brainer! :o

Great image and thanks for the lesson Artie!

[Tom Graham]

I still don't get it. I would like the camera feedback/information to be useful. But no, we are saying - don't give any credibility to the clipping indication, it's not really happening. Like the gas/fuel gauge on my car, it shows empty but we will ignore it.
As for if it ain't broke, don't fix it - it's really - it is broke, so let's ignore it. Your car shows a low battery charge light on the dash? Put a piece of black tape over it.
All in good fun, there are "bigger fish to fry" :) . But I don't use tools that are not useful and I destroy tools that mislead me.

Tom

[Ákos Lumnitzer]

In the example above if you read what was said is that Artie had dialled a lot of overexposure to photograph in flight. What happened when he took his own advice and instead of fiddling trying to reduce + compensation he just took a shot or two. Most people would probably fiddle and miss the opp. I learned that too, so I fiddle later after I check histogram. If he had the perfect scenario, he would have had time to reduce + compensation so the light tones are at the edge of the histogram but not clipped as bad as this. I think the lesson to learn is that not all is lost just because the histogram says so! But it is your best friend. Try for yourself and you may well be surprised at how much you can still recover as long as it's shot in RAW! :)

[Tom Graham]

I very agree, no argument, when you don't have time to "tweak"settings, take the shot.
But the other message here, I think, is that you can not trust clipping information/feedback.
At least not for Canon cameras :)

Tom

[Ákos Lumnitzer]

I think you can. Just don't push too hard. If he had his exposure manually set to + 3 2/3 then he may have been in trouble with the light tones for sure. If Artie would kindly let us know how much exposure he had to pull back that would be great! I would say that he had to reduce by 1 2/3 of a stop to a +1 overexposure in the RAW file to keep detail and show as intended before conversion. Anyway, I am sure he will chime in sooner or later...... :)

[John Chardine]

I agree, you can trust the clipping information. It is well known that the information is "conservative" in that it might show some clipping where none exists. If complete accuracy is not possible, then you want the system to be a bit conservative don't you. Certainly you don't want it to say that all is OK when you have really blown the highlights.

There are ways to make the blinkies/histogram on the LCD more accurate. Try dialing in a neutral Picture Style and reduce the contrast of that style to the lowest setting. Also reduce saturation as well. I have checked this and the ACR warnings are close to the camera's LCD. The other method is to consider using a UniWB- I know very little about this because I can't find one out there for the mark IV, but just Google it.

[Arthur Morris]

I think you can. Just don't push too hard. If he had his exposure manually set to + 3 2/3 then he may have been in trouble with the light tones for sure. If Artie would kindly let us know how much exposure he had to pull back that would be great! I would say that he had to reduce by 1 2/3 of a stop to a +1 overexposure in the RAW file to keep detail and show as intended before conversion. Anyway, I am sure he will chime in sooner or later...... :)

Akos, I advise folks to use the Recovery Slider to recover apparently over-exposed highlights, not the Exposure Slider. (See the link to the ER thread in Pane #1.) In this case I move the Recovery Slider to 25.

[Arthur Morris]

I very agree, no argument, when you don't have time to "tweak"settings, take the shot. But the other message here, I think, is that you can not trust clipping information/feedback. At least not for Canon cameras :) Tom

Hey Tom, At least we agree on something. You are free to trust what or whom you want. I rely on the flashing highlight warnings in the field and find them helpful; and its not like all of my images suck.

As for Canon, according to the internet experts none of my lenses are sharp and my cameras cannot focus. Now to that I can add inaccurate clipping info. I guess that I will need to get a job in Burger King :)

[Jay Gould]

Artie, when you see that much blinking in the screen, depending upon the display, would the next steps be 1) to see how much of the blinking is peaked in the histogram, and 2) to what extent is the blinking in areas that do not have significant detail under the circumstances of the shot?

The blinks on the bill are not relevant - probably not much detail.

The bulk of the red being in the feathers on the head would be cause for concern.

While the recovery slider is going to eliminate the red in the image being processed, doesn't that only mean that the whites are being brought below 255?

Generalizing, just because the whites are brought from a solid spike against the right wall of the histogram so that the whites are below 255 doesn't necessary mean you have recovered significant detail, does it?

In the recovered image - which is a great smiley face with excellent eye contact, HA, and expression, while I can see the feather spikes on the top of the head, I am not seeing much in the way of detail, if any, in the area of the head below the crown or the neck.

The fact that I do not see detail on my 17" laptop monitor would in no mean that there isn't any detail, and I certainly would consider this a keeper overall.

[Michael Gerald-Yamasaki]

Akos, I advise folks to use the Recovery Slider to recover apparently over-exposed highlights, not the Exposure Slider. (See the link to the ER thread in Pane #1.) In this case I move the Recovery Slider to 25.

Artie,

Greetings. In this particular case (given the ACR settings in pane #1), perhaps you might consider first moving Brightness to 0, then adjusting from there as needed.

Folks,

In general, I've found that RAW conversion involves the application of a curve, in Nikon it is called Picture Control. I'd guess there is a similar feature for Canon (it's what distinguishes such the settings for, again, in Nikon-speak Neutral, Standard, Vivid, Portrait, Landscape, etc.). This RAW curve can have an impact on what turns out to being blown in an image, as can WB, saturation, brightness, again Nikon DLighting.

The camera display is just one histogram of a particularly fast calculation to satisfy the need for speed and simplicity of the calculation. It's not what I would choose as the most information rich display (but that's just me). Some folks go through the Uni-WB approach (not my cup of green tea ;)).

Gosh, don't throw anything away off the look in camera screen or histogram! Buy higher capacity cards (and disks)! One of Ansel Adams iconic shots was from him dropping his camera as it was released (Oh, that won't be any good... delete :().

Just sayin... ;)

Cheers,

-Michael-

[Arthur Morris]

Micheal, The Brightness Slider was on the default, +50 when I adjusted the Recovery Slider.... (I always leave it on +50 until I am done with the Exposure, Recovery, and Blacks sliders. Then I adjust it to give the image the overall look that I want; it works just like the mid-tone slider in Levels in Photoshop....

Are you saying that #1: folks should change the default to 0?

#2: moving the Brightness Slider to 0 would have eliminated some or all of the clipping warning?

[Arthur Morris]

Michael, I just tried it. Setting the Brightness to 0 reduced the clipping only marginally. Highlights were full Recovered at 19 rather than the original 25.

Are you saying that there is a significant advantage to setting the Brightness to zero for either clipped images or all images?

[Michael Gerald-Yamasaki]

Michael, I just tried it. Setting the Brightness to 0 reduced the clipping only marginally. Highlights were full Recovered at 19 rather than the original 25.

Are you saying that there is a significant advantage to setting the Brightness to zero for either clipped images or all images?

Artie,

The default brightness setting of 50 for ACR & LR is just some generic setting. Since Adobe can't know what works best for a specific situation (or camera, for that matter) they picked +50.

What brightness does is essentially shift the histogram to the right, in this instance during the conversion of the RAW data to an image. This is not the same as exposing to the right as that would involve altering, well, exposure. The result of the brightness shift (in RAW conversion) is more color resolution at the cost of less luminance (brightness) resolution at the brighter end of the histogram.

For this image, +50 brightness is shifting more of the image to being blown (as you've seen).

What recovery does (this is just my experiential impression) is selectively for the far right of the histogram increase luminance resolution at the cost of less color resolution. This is my impression from what happens when you over recover an image, the color at the edge of the blown regions goes odd and methinks eventually if you could continue to increase the recovery one would see color banding (extreme loss of color resolution).

But enough of that ;) ... What you commonly set brightness at is a matter of taste and its impact will be different depending on how far to the right you have exposed the image.

I prefer to preview my images at 0... All the settings at 0, because for me it is a preview (in LR) before I tackle the RAW conversion in Capture NX and I prefer to evaluate the image from as neutral a starting point as possible... knowing it will look much better when converted and post-processed to my taste.

As always ymmv...

By the way, the in camera histogram, blinkies, etc. is not the same as the ACR histogram (nor is it the same as PS's histogram). Sigh.

Cheers,

-Michael-

[Arthur Morris]

Thanks MGY. I will just keep plodding along in ignorance of all the technical stuff. I do agree that if you get the Recovery Slider above 50 that some funky things start to happen.

What is ymmv?

[Michael Gerald-Yamasaki]

Thanks MGY. I will just keep plodding along in ignorance of all the technical stuff. I do agree that if you get the Recovery Slider above 50 that some funky things start to happen.

What is ymmv?

ymmv = your miles may vary :D

I think I'll convert my signature to my long lived nickname... (only one more character than MGY ;) )

Cheers,

-Yamo-

[Arthur Morris]

Thank you sir :)

[Don Lacy]

This is still very enlightening because Artie is not showing us the jpg but the actual RAW file. Artie, is your software set up to show the red only for value 255 or a range like '>245'? If all those are 255, then the recovery is quite remarkable. Can we attribute that to the quality of 1DmarkIV raw file? I have always read that the RAW files coming out of pro cameras take pulling & pushing better than those coming out of the prosumer cameras( like my 40D).

Kaustubh, ACR is capable of recovering detail in one blow channel usually the red channel if there is information in the other two and by recovering I mean using a complicated algorithm to guess at what the red channel should be. Artie's image is a perfect example of this and I do believe that the 1D mark IV file help here since it has been my experience shooting with prosummer cameras that they do not handle this much recovery as well as was shown here.

[WIlliam Maroldo]

My take again. With an image with clipped highlights and opened in ACR, I first use the exposure slider to get the exposure to normal, then use the recovery slider to deal with the remaining clipped highlights. The problem is that you want to use the recovery slider only as much as necessary- it is easy to lose details and end up with a non-clipped gray. Using recovery first means you need to use recovery more than necessary. Using the curves "Highlight and Light" sliders are also useful.
As far as the other end, clipped dark parts of an image, the first step is knock down the "Black" slider to zero. Works wonders.

regards~Bill

[Don Lacy]

My take again. With an image with clipped highlights and opened in ACR, I first use the exposure slider to get the exposure to normal, then use the recovery slider to deal with the remaining clipped highlights. The problem is that you want to use the recovery slider only as much as necessary- it is easy to lose details and end up with a non-clipped gray. Using recovery first means you need to use recovery more than necessary. Using the curves "Highlight and Light" sliders are also useful.
As far as the other end, clipped dark parts of an image, the first step is knock down the "Black" slider to zero. Works wonders.

regards~Bill

Bill, I use the same process exposure to get the overall image right then recovery to fine tune the highlights.

[Ákos Lumnitzer]

I do exactly as William said in pane 33!

[WIlliam Maroldo]

. Artie's image is a perfect example of this and I do believe that the 1D mark IV file help here since it has been my experience shooting with prosummer cameras that they do not handle this much recovery as well as was shown here.

Interesting, and probably true. I have used the Sony A700, and more recently the A850, and I suspect that they may have a greater dynamic range(especially the A850), and my personal experience with recovery is not typical. regards~Bill

I posted something similar to this thread in Dec 2009 here

[Jay Gould]

Artie,

The default brightness setting of 50 for ACR & LR is just some generic setting. Since Adobe can't know what works best for a specific situation (or camera, for that matter) they picked +50.

What brightness does is essentially shift the histogram to the right, in this instance during the conversion of the RAW data to an image. This is not the same as exposing to the right as that would involve altering, well, exposure. The result of the brightness shift (in RAW conversion) is more color resolution at the cost of less luminance (brightness) resolution at the brighter end of the histogram.

For this image, +50 brightness is shifting more of the image to being blown (as you've seen).

What recovery does (this is just my experiential impression) is selectively for the far right of the histogram increase luminance resolution at the cost of less color resolution. This is my impression from what happens when you over recover an image, the color at the edge of the blown regions goes odd and methinks eventually if you could continue to increase the recovery one would see color banding (extreme loss of color resolution).

But enough of that ;) ... What you commonly set brightness at is a matter of taste and its impact will be different depending on how far to the right you have exposed the image.

I prefer to preview my images at 0... All the settings at 0, because for me it is a preview (in LR) before I tackle the RAW conversion in Capture NX and I prefer to evaluate the image from as neutral a starting point as possible... knowing it will look much better when converted and post-processed to my taste.

As always ymmv...

By the way, the in camera histogram, blinkies, etc. is not the same as the ACR histogram (nor is it the same as PS's histogram). Sigh.

Cheers,

-Michael-

Michael, in LR, is there a way to set everything at "0" as a default at the time of import.

I too on an image by image basis reduce to "0" and then process in LR.

[Don Lacy]

Michael, in LR, is there a way to set everything at "0" as a default at the time of import.

To the right of the word basic right above white balance there is a drop down menu were you can change the defaults for ACR. Not sure why you would want to since the defaults are just a starting point anyway they are going to get moved to optimize the image no matter were you start them at. For 99% of my images i never have to move the brightness or contrast sliders off the default settings and I always add blacks since I prefer to do it in ACR instead of PS.

[Jay Gould]

To the right of the word basic right above white balance there is a drop down menu were you can change the defaults for ACR. Not sure why you would want to since the defaults are just a starting point anyway they are going to get moved to optimize the image no matter were you start them at. For 99% of my images i never have to move the brightness or contrast sliders off the default settings and I always add blacks since I prefer to do it in ACR instead of PS.

For example, I have lots of images shot in Antarctica. And, yes, they do require Recovery.

If you start with Brightness at "0" the histogram is significantly more spread than if you start at +50. Also, the amount of Recovery necessary is greater the more brightness that is applied.

Regarding changing defaults, what you are suggesting is different in LR. To the right of the word "basic" is the drop down menu which starts with LR defaults.

Blacks start at +5; Brightness +50; Contrast +25. I would prefer everything to start at "0" as shot.

[Don Lacy]

If you start with Brightness at "0" the histogram is significantly more spread than if you start at +50. Also

Brightness controls the midtones while it will spread out the histogram it is not the best tool for controlling highlights since you will have to fix the midtones in PS later.
I do not have LR but I am assuming ACR is the same in both set everything to 0 go to the drop down menu second from the bottom it should say save new camera raw defaults click on it and your settings will now be the new defaults.

[Desmond Chan]

Generalizing, just because the whites are brought from a solid spike against the right wall of the histogram so that the whites are below 255 doesn't necessary mean you have recovered significant detail, does it?

The details will show if there are details in the subject to begin with and that any of the RGB channel has recorded at least some of those details. You move the recovery slider (in Camera Raw) until you see the details and adjust further as you see fit. Sometimes you adjust using both the exposure and the recovery to get the details to show.

[Michael Gerald-Yamasaki]

Michael, in LR, is there a way to set everything at "0" as a default at the time of import.

I too on an image by image basis reduce to "0" and then process in LR.

Jay,

Greetings. I created a User Preset (just to keep track)... called it "Leave everything alone". Then (as I recall) used the Set Default Develop Settings to the settings as Leave everything alone.

Don,

I just prefer evaluate the image from an as neutral as possible starting point before I move to the actual conversion in Capture NX. Not necessarily for everyone...

Cheers,

-Yamo-

[Jay Gould]

Brightness controls the midtones while it will spread out the histogram it is not the best tool for controlling highlights since you will have to fix the midtones in PS later.
I do not have LR but I am assuming ACR is the same in both set everything to 0 go to the drop down menu second from the bottom it should say save new camera raw defaults click on it and your settings will now be the new defaults.

Don, everything you say is correct; however, if you shot a "spread" histogram exposed to the right, and then you open the image adding +50 before you do anything, instead of maintaining the spread with ETTR, the histogram is compacted to the right.

Why would you want to start looking at a RAW image with brightness, contrast, and blacks changed from the way you shot it in the first place?

What are you suggesting that I am missing?

[Jay Gould]

Jay,

Greetings. I created a User Preset (just to keep track)... called it "Leave everything alone". Then (as I recall) used the Set Default Develop Settings to the settings as Leave everything alone.

Don,

I just prefer evaluate the image from an as neutral as possible starting point before I move to the actual conversion in Capture NX. Not necessarily for everyone...

Cheers,

-Yamo-

Great idea!!

[Don Lacy]

Why would you want to start looking at a RAW image with brightness, contrast, and blacks changed from the way you shot it in the first place?

Setting everything to 0 does not show you the image as you shot it or as your histogram portrayed in camera
The default settings were picked by Adobe to give you a neutral starting point. With everything set to 0 you start with an image that has no contrast and midtones that are way to dark.

I just prefer evaluate the image from an as neutral as possible starting point before I move to the actual conversion in Capture NX. Not necessarily for everyone...

Yamo, If you are using LR to only preview images then it is my understanding that the previews are generated from the embedded jpeg created in camera.

[Michael Gerald-Yamasaki]

Yamo, If you are using LR to only preview images then it is my understanding that the previews are generated from the embedded jpeg created in camera.

Well, actually LR does not use the embedded jpeg. It converts its own previews from the default settings. Since I shoot with a Nikon, Capture NX shows me the actual preview.

Cheers,

-Yamo-

[Don Lacy]

Well, actually LR does not use the embedded jpeg. It converts its own previews from the default settings. Since I shoot with a Nikon, Capture NX shows me the actual preview.

Cheers,

-Yamo-

My mistake I was confusing LR with bridge.

[Arthur Morris]

My advice is to start with the Recovery Slider to deal with clip warnings (not with the EXP slider...)

As for the 0 Brightness advice, it makes, well, to be honest, 0 sense to me. You will be spending hours moving the slider to close to +50 for each image as properly exposed images look way too dark at BR = 0.... With no advantage that I can discern. And, back to the basics: my images have not been sucking for the past few years.... If it ain't broke, why fix it? :)

[Arthur Morris]

Jay,

re:

Artie, when you see that much blinking in the screen, depending upon the display, would the next steps be 1) to see how much of the blinking is peaked in the histogram, and 2) to what extent is the blinking in areas that do not have significant detail under the circumstances of the shot?

No.

The blinks on the bill are not relevant - probably not much detail.

The bulk of the red being in the feathers on the head would be cause for concern.

While the recovery slider is going to eliminate the red in the image being processed,

Disagree.

doesn't that only mean that the whites are being brought below 255?

I don't know what it means. I do it and the final image looks fine to me.

Generalizing, just because the whites are brought from a solid spike against the right wall of the histogram so that the whites are below 255 doesn't necessary mean you have recovered significant detail, does it?

Not sure. This image looks fine to me with detail in the WHITES.

In the recovered image - which is a great smiley face with excellent eye contact, HA, and expression, while I can see the feather spikes on the top of the head, I am not seeing much in the way of detail, if any, in the area of the head below the crown or the neck.

The fact that I do not see detail on my 17" laptop monitor would in no mean that there isn't any detail, and I certainly would consider this a keeper overal.

It's a JPEG = increased contrast. I just looked at the TIFF, there is tons of texture and detail in the neck.

IMHO folks are spending too much time on scientific theorizing and not enough time spent making and optimizing images :)

[Jay Gould]

Artie, Thank You!