Is it better to under expose or over expose a picture?

[Mercenary]

I got back from a trip a few month ago and just started to look over my photos… I went with a new lens so I was getting used to it but I kept it at 2.8 for most of the photos and allowed the camera to select the speed. So most photos came out great, but about 1/3 of them are over exposed. I have been adjusting them in light room and able to make most of them “normal again” but I just wanted to get everyone’s thoughts on this. When I go again should I just drop the exposer level down a step to help with this? I know then I may get some that will be underexposed and I may have to tweak to lighten them in light room. Just trying to find the best balance.

Thanks!

 

[SrisonS]

I've personally gone with underexposing a lot. I'm always afraid of overexposing and blowing out details and colors.

 

[mom2rtk]

I had a hard time buying into this because I like my pictures fairly bright, but Scott is right. Once it's too bright, there's nothing you can do with it. So better to go a little under and lighten it in post if needed.

I ended up with a handful of shots overexposed on our summer trip. I was using my 2.8 lens a lot, going in and out of dark buildings. You really have to pay attention to what you're doing in EVERY setting once you take it off of auto or program. If you have it set to 2.8, if you are in a bright setting, even your fastest shutter speed can be too light. That has been my greatest challenge this year..... training myself to THINK before every shot so I'm not just stuck with what I did on my last shot!

 

[zackiedawg]

The obvious answer, of course, is that it's best to get the exposure right!

I think the old advice can't really be universally followed - it really depends on your camera. Some cameras are more prone to blowing highlights, and you should probably shoot with a lean towards underexposure rather than overexposure, since blown highlights are not recoverable once blown. Some cameras are more prone to losing shadow detail if shadows get burned, or are extremely prone to shadow noise which will show up hevily when gaining the shadows up - these cameras should probably be shot with a tendency towards overexposing.

Just to illustrate the difference - my last camera was a Sony A300 - I shot with that camera at EV +.3 almost all the time - because it was tuned by Sony to control highlights, and almost never blew highlights - more often than not, it underexposed. So the +.3 adjustment let me get my exposures pretty well spot-on, and if one was off a bit, it was more than likely going to be underexposed than overexposed.

I replaced that camera with a Sony A550 - this camera is the opposite - it tends slightly towards overexposure a small amount - so I shoot with this camera most of the time at EV -.3, which helps keep the highlights just in control and lands perfect exposure every time.

That's the great thing about an EV - it's there to adjust the baseline of your camera to what works best for you - figure out if more of your shots seem to have blown highlights and skies, or do they tend to be underexposed with murky and low detail shadows. Then make an EV adjustment to compensate - usually only very small amounts like .3 to .7 will do it. Then, all of your exposures should end up pretty much spot-on, and when you do miss, it should give you the latitude to correct in post without lost detail.

 

[MICKEY88]

are you shooting raw or jpeg ??

 

[pgowder]

I've heard this topic discussed on Shutters Inc podcast. They talked with some camera reps that said there is more detail in the highlights than in the shadows.

In post you can drop the exposure down and retain more details in the highlights. But if you try to go the other way there is less detail in the shadows and when you try to brighten them you'll end up with more noise.

Not sure that is the case, just what I heard.

 

[pgowder]

Here's an article about it.

http://www.luminous-landscape.com/tutorials/expose-right.shtml

 

[MICKEY88]

I've heard this topic discussed on Shutters Inc podcast. They talked with some camera reps that said there is more detail in the highlights than in the shadows.

In post you can drop the exposure down and retain more details in the highlights. But if you try to go the other way there is less detail in the shadows and when you try to brighten them you'll end up with more noise.

Not sure that is the case, just what I heard.

that's the way I've always herad it as well, it's better to slightly overexpose

 

[Cinbride]

My kids are white! I had a problem with almost all pictures when I first got my t2i. Now I underexpose just a little. Helps keep their faces in the picture instead of a white blur. I'm still learning A LOT but for myself I think it is easier to go in and adjust the picture to highlight areas and make it brighter than it is to fix overexposed, which I can't really do unless I do blk/white.

 

[MICKEY88]

My kids are white! I had a problem with almost all pictures when I first got my t2i. Now I underexpose just a little. Helps keep their faces in the picture instead of a white blur. I'm still learning A LOT but for myself I think it is easier to go in and adjust the picture to highlight areas and make it brighter than it is to fix overexposed, which I can't really do unless I do blk/white.

all pictures, or flash pictures..

 

[MarkBarbieri]

I used to be fairly religious about checking my histogram and exposing to the right. Now I keep it simpler. I just shoot with as much exposure as possible without getting any blinkies (blown out highlights) where I don't want them. As long as you haven't blown out any highlights, pictures do better when you lower the exposure in post production than when you increase it.

My normal EV setting is at 0. I often drop it to -1/3 in sunlight or -2/3 in sunlight while shooting people in white or very light colors.

 

[Mercenary]

are you shooting raw or jpeg ??

I used RAW most of the time and I know that helps... So then is there a rule of thumb for correcting over exposed pics in lightroom... I was doing fine but I have run into some that the color is all messed up and just dropping the EV in lightroom makes it image just blah ans the color is jacked...

I also have some with sun on their faces and I just cant get the detail back without making the whole picture too dark. They are kinda like white blobs.

I may try the -1/3 stop down like Mark said... it is mainly the outside pics that I had this issue on... I dont want to go back to auot but man is it a bummer when the pics dont work...

 

[MarkBarbieri]

Are the faces blown out? In Lightroom, hold down the alt key and adjust the exposure slider. If you see part of the picture looking bright red while you hold down the alt key, that is an area that was so overexposed (blown out) that it hs no detail left. You won't be able to make that area look good. Recovery can help some, but it isn't a miracle worker. Set your camera up so that blown highlights flash and you'll known with a quick glance at the LCD whether you have a problem.

If the faces aren't overexposed and you can't get them exposed properly with the exposure slider without making the picture too dark, then you have a light problem and not an exposure problem. Their faces had too much light on them relative to the background. This often happens when you use flash in Auto or Program mode because the camera lights the subject with light from the flash and doesn't make an effort to keep the background well exposed with ambient light.

If you want a better assessment, post some examples here and people will give you good feedback.

 

[MICKEY88]

what mode were you shooting in ?

another option is to spot meter off of the faces

 

[NLD]

I'd rather slightly overexpose. Bringing the exposure up in pp introduces / reveals noise... bringing the exposure down can help eliminate noise. With RAW + Lightroom (finally) I'm finding it's not terribly hard to bring the exposure down and still keep a good overall contrast and color balance.

 

[photo_chick]

You can't recover pixels that are completely blown out. In film I'd have said overexposing was better. But with digital I go with a little under if I have to make a choice rather than over. I know what I can pull out of an image from my camera.

But different cameras and processing methods yield different results.. so go whichever way that works for you.

 

[pgowder]

You can't recover pixels that are completely blown out. In film I'd have said overexposing was better. But with digital I go with a little under if I have to make a choice rather than over. I know what I can pull out of an image from my camera.

But different cameras and processing methods yield different results.. so go whichever way that works for you.

I've also found that what looks blown out on the back of my lcd most of the time still has some detail there.

 

[pgowder]

You can't recover pixels that are completely blown out. In film I'd have said overexposing was better. But with digital I go with a little under if I have to make a choice rather than over. I know what I can pull out of an image from my camera.

But different cameras and processing methods yield different results.. so go whichever way that works for you.

And the Recovery Slider in Lightroom really helps pull back in details from the highlights.

 

[disneyboy2003]

If you're shooting in JPEG, it's best to get the correct exposure when you take the photo.

However, if you're shooting in RAW, you should "expose to the right", meaning you should slightly overexpose your photos without blowing the highlights. The reason it's called "expose to the right" is because you want the much of the image info to be on the right side of the histogram (ie. the highlights part of the histogram).

I'm not sure if you're familiar with histograms, but here's a brief example of what a histogram shows. The histogram displays a graph of how much shadows, midtones, and highlights there are in your photo. Here's an example (from the Canon Web site):

Brighter photos will have more of the graph on the right side of the histogram. Darker photos will have more of the graph on the left side of the histogram.

When you shoot in RAW, the camera records TONS more information in the highlight / right side of the histogram than it does in the shadow / left side of the histogram. pgowder provided a link to an excellent tutorial that describes why this is so. Basically:

• 1/2 (that's HALF!) of the tonal values are available in the "brightest" tones,
• 1/4 of the tonal values are available in the "bright" tones,
• 1/8 of the tonal values are available in the "midtones",
• 1/16 of the tonal values are available in the "dark" tones, and
• 1/32 of the tonal values are available in the "darkest" tones

So, when you "expose to the right", you'll have a LOT more information / data available for you when you do post-processing. That's why people will tell you to "expose to the right" if you're shooting RAW.

How do you "expose to the right"? If you're using Av (aperture priority) or Tv (shutter priority), you can add a little bit of Exposure Compensation (perhaps +1/3 or +2/3?) to make the photo a little brighter. Again, you'll need to check your histogram to see how far the extra Exposure Compensation will bring your histogram to the right.

How far do you "expose to the right"? You add enough Exposure Compensation so that the right side of the graph drops off right before the right-hand edge of the histogram. This is the type of histogram you'll want:

Here's an example of what you DON'T want to do. Notice the 3rd photo & histogram. The photo & histogram on the right are WAY overexposed. The highlights are "blown out." The graph runs directly into the right side of the histogram (ie. it doesn't drop off right before the right-hand edge of the histogram).

Your dSLR probably has a "highlight warning" feature, where it looks for "blown out" areas of your photo and highlights them flashing red. Often, these are affectionately known as "blinkies" because they're blinking red areas that show you the blown highlights. You'll need to refer to your camera's user manual to figure out how to turn on this "highlight warning" feature.

(I know this is actually a screen-shot from Adobe Camera Raw, rather than from a dSLR, but this also illustrates the red "blinkies" that you'd see on your camera)​

Just to reiterate, "expose to the right" is usually for folks shooting RAW (not for JPEG). Also, "expose to the right" does NOT mean that you should blow-out the highlights.

Hope that helps!

 

[Mercenary]

If you're shooting in JPEG, it's best to get the correct exposure when you take the photo.

However, if you're shooting in RAW, you should "expose to the right", meaning you should slightly overexpose your photos without blowing the highlights. The reason it's called "expose to the right" is because you want the much of the image info to be on the right side of the histogram (ie. the highlights part of the histogram).

Just to reiterate, "expose to the right" is usually for folks shooting RAW (not for JPEG). Also, "expose to the right" does NOT mean that you should blow-out the highlights.

Hope that helps!

This was a great post! Thanks for the info


Thanks so much to all of you for taking the time...

Mark, Ok so alt and exposure in lightroom what does it do? I dont see red, but it turns dark with a few colors. so I guess the data is there... on the histogram there is an up arrow in the top right corner when I hover over it there is tones of red. So I an guessing those are some areas that are blown out... Guess this is turnning into a lightroom tutorial sorry to get off subject...