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RAW capture exposure

David Mantripp
Hi,

I'm a little puzzled about how to see the actual, pre-adjustment input histogram in CaptureOne. The Histogram tool shows the output histogram - i.e if I reduce exposure, it will shift leftwards. Fine. But I expect the Exposure Evaluation tool to show me the input histogram, so that I can evaluate my capture exposure. But this shifts as well, if I change the Base Curve.

So how can I see what the levels in my RAW file are ? Seems pretty basic....

Thanks
David
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Comments

6 comments

Date Votes
  • Ian Wilson
    Moderator
    Top Commenter
    You may not actually want to do this, or it could be what you would like to see. On the Capture tab (which may not be visible by default) there is a tool called Exposure Evaluation. See the explanation here and scroll down quite a long way to see the description of this particular tool.

    If you don't have a Capture Tab you can show it from the View menu - Add Tool Tab.

    You don't have to have shot tethered to use it, and you can always add that tool to another tab if you want to. Notice from the help page I linked to that the histograms elsewhere will change as you make adjustments but this one won't. (However, experiment shows that although it is not changed by adjustments you make to say exposure or levels, it is changed if you alter the base characteristics setting from say Film Standard to Film Extra Shadow or Linear Response.)

    (Or learn to love the way C1 usually shows you things.)

    Any help?

    Ian
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  • SFA
    Just to augment what Ian3 has said.

    The Linear Response curve is the effective base level RAW file interpretation. I think that is what you want here.


    Grant
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  • Ian Wilson
    Moderator
    Top Commenter
    [quote="SFA" wrote:
    Just to augment what Ian3 has said.

    The Linear Response curve is the effective base level RAW file interpretation. I think that is what you want here.


    Grant

    Yes but... do you always want to have to work your way towards a useable result from that, or is it more effective to start from one of the other base characteristic curves?

    Ian
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  • SFA
    [quote="Ian3" wrote:
    [quote="SFA" wrote:
    Just to augment what Ian3 has said.

    The Linear Response curve is the effective base level RAW file interpretation. I think that is what you want here.


    Grant

    Yes but... do you always want to have to work your way towards a useable result from that, or is it more effective to start from one of the other base characteristic curves?

    Ian


    It depends Ian, but the Linear option does provide the Histogram that David1 seeks - or at least is as close to it as can be found when at least some interpretation of data has to be preformed in order to display anything at all.

    As a more practical approach for everyday processing I would agree that starting from a pre-defined set of adjustments makes more sense. Perhaps one needs to be happy with the presets compared to the original before feeling comfortable in making them the first option in the process.

    Actually I find I quite often change to Linear, add a couple of additional tweaks to make it work more like a provided profile and then adjust from there. I often think about creating a Style for the group of changes but as I am not often in a controlled environment I have concluded that I am probably better served by tweaking one image and then using that as the basis for the rest of the set or groups of the rest of the set. It depends on the original file, what I am trying to achieve and the purpose of the edits at the time.

    It is not necessarily a long process. In fact usually quite quick.



    Grant
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  • David Mantripp
    I actually realised after I posted this that it was actually a pretty stupid question 😊 Well, it was late...

    What I guess it does show (and I emphasise "guess") is that the basic curve is effectively a gamma curve applied at a very early stage to the linear demosaiced data.

    The shape of the histogram will tell me if I've overexposed, not it's position.
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  • Paul Steunebrink
    [quote="David1" wrote:
    I actually realised after I posted this that it was actually a pretty stupid question 😊 Well, it was late...

    What I guess it does show (and I emphasise "guess") is that the basic curve is effectively a gamma curve applied at a very early stage to the linear demosaiced data.

    The shape of the histogram will tell me if I've overexposed, not it's position.

    As you guessed, the Exposure Evaluation tool is the place to go. Only a few adjustments affect its histogram.
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