It has come to my attention over the last few years that many landscape photographers have begun to shun a very good friend of mine – the black pixel. I’d like to take the opportunity to spend a little time discussing the steady decline in the use of deep shadow in digital photography and post-processing.
Does Dark Matter
December 11, 2011
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Paul Moon
19 Responses
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Thanks Alan,
I’m sure there are many who are quite happy to darken shadows in their post-processing as you do. Glad you’ve actually though seriously about shadow and shade and put something into practice. It is often over-looked, even by some professional landscape photographers.On December 12, 2011 at 12:56 pm • Reply
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This article in some ways mirrors Tim’s on Balancing Light. I’ve made some comments about that which are possible relevant here. When I look at images captured digitally I see more and more that I would class as “Too light”. Whilst shadow detail can be important, I sometimes think that it is better to let the shadows hold some mystery and ask the viewer to imagine what might be there. I’m not talking about deep blocked up shadows (although Bill Brandt did alright with them) but dark shadows with just a hint of detail. After all, isn’t that what shadows are?. Nice article Paul, and it’s great to be able to put forward and discuss ideas on GBL when most magazines are only interested in f stops and shutter speeds.
On December 12, 2011 at 12:17 pm • Reply-
Tim’s article was based on my comments regarding the use of graduated filters and does a great job of showing what I was referring to in my article.
I’m not against detail in shadow areas just that it should remain dark. There are occasions when blocked shadows cannot be avoided (ie. silhouettes) and we shouldn’t be put off by having clipped blacks in our images. I nearly used Bill Brandt as an example so glad you’ve included that as a reference. Thanks for the kind comments Robin.On December 12, 2011 at 1:08 pm • Reply
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George Hodlin
Having been involved in Camera Clubs for many years,I have had to suffer “Judges” bewailing the lack of detail in dark areas of an image. This has, unfortunately, tended to produce many photographers who are happier with flatter images. Whilst I do not wish to see blocked shadows in every image, I agree entirely with your comments and I am pleased that you have brought this subject into the public domain. An excellent article and one, I hope, will make Camera Club judges think more about deep shadows and the beneficial effect they can have on the final image.
On December 14, 2011 at 11:34 am • Reply -
Great article Paul. I have to agree, I too used to try and make images using black shadow areas to accentuate subtle highlighting (No where near as good as your beautiful images I might add) but have since shyed away due to shadow bashing photographic trends. I’m with you, long live the shadow and your great work has inspired me to have another go.
On December 15, 2011 at 11:43 am • Reply -
Good article and from the comments so far you can already see that you have several supporters. I’m another – I have been going through a phase of trying to extract maximum detail from the shadow areas, but find that too often this results in “muddy” tones that bring nothing to the composition. So I am glad to see that the black tone (pixel or halide grain!!) is definitely not dead! Rgds., Adam
On December 15, 2011 at 1:38 pm • Reply -
Whoa! The wriggly things are escaping the can….
I agree with most of what you say but surely all this has to be considered in the context of (a) the reproduction medium and (b) the calibration of the image path from snap to display. Most amateurs (yes, most!) know little or nothing about the technicalities of dynamic range or how to best encompass that in their chosen output medium: the paper surface, ink selection and (for non-print) the luminoisity and specular reflection factor of the viewing surace all have an impact on the percieved ‘blackness’ of the 0,0,0, pixel. E.g., on a monitor screen, ‘black’ is only as ‘black’ as the ambient light allows, simply because the screen is not emitting ‘black’ but simply emitting nothing, allowing the incident light to define the black point. SO the perceived contrast on a monitor will be much greater if viewd in dim light. On a gloss paper, black will appear deeper than on the matt variant mainly due to the surface reflectivity of that medium but how black this is depends on how good is the ink being used, and how absorbent is the surface. Even when all this is considered, the likelihood is fairly remote that a ‘tog’ will ensure that all his dark pixels (notwithstanding a similar problem with his ‘light’ ones!) are placed correctly on a the output tonal curve. And don’t get me started on tone compression (AKA HDR)!!
In summary, I would say that we all need to employ the joys of the ‘dark side’ but at the same time be aware of not losing stuff in the murk. When all’s said and done, if the photographer is happy with what he sees when he’s finished with it, surely the goal has been achieved?On December 19, 2011 at 12:10 pm • Reply -
Hello Ian,
Thanks for commenting on the article. As you say there is a great deal of difference in the reproduction medium of the photographic image. I currently work in the print sector where we use 6 colour litho presses so do know quite a bit about additive and subtractive colour and also digital ink jet printing. The images I’ve chosen to display with the article range from some with heavily clipped shadows to some with barely any clipped shadows depending on the subject. I’ve attempted to show that, contrary to popular opinion, blacks can be clipped without risk of destroying the file/print. The first image of the charcoal makes a wonderful print despite it being clipped by perhaps 30%. Clipping blacks doesn’t necessarily produce poor results in print. I fully agree with your technical comments and I’m sorry I didn’t expand the article to include some of the points you raise. Glad you’ve found time to comment and as you say it’s really a matter of choice how your finished prints/files look.
PaulOn December 19, 2011 at 4:26 pm • Reply -
Ben Stephenson
A point very much worth making, Paul. I think a lot of people starting out doing digital post-processing try to maximise dynamic range at all costs – they want their histogram to have a nice normally distributed ‘bell curve’ with a small amount of dark and a small amount of light at each end with a nice smooth ‘hill’ in the middle. In this ‘technology first’ approach, it is easily forgotten that what’s important in an image is the response that it evokes in the viewer – and there simply aren’t any rules for that!
On December 20, 2011 at 10:42 am • Reply-
Hello Ben,
Glad you’ve responded to my article and your description of the ‘post-processing for dummies’ really hits the nail on the head. I often see some wonderfully composed landscape photographs spoilt by this flawed methodology and hopefully I’ve given a few people some food for thought regarding shade and shadow. Thanks Ben.
PaulOn December 21, 2011 at 12:50 pm • Reply
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LensView
Great thoughts here, Paul. I fully agree that most of us have lost that good old friend, the Black Pixel. It doesn’t always have its place, but most of us should consider using it more often. I also agree with Ian about the influence of the medium used. Especially the difference between computer (or tablet or phone) monitor and a print is often huge and our processing of an image should take the type of final media into account.
As often as I accept burned out highlights, I should really also more often accept clipped shadows. After all, isn’t there a hint of mistery in the darkness? Isn’t often that which we don’t see (show) more interesting than what is visible? So, dark shadows can be a very powerful tool to express something in an image and, as you said, to help accentuate the light.On December 21, 2011 at 12:09 pm • Reply-
Thanks LensView,
I’m glad my words have made you consider shade and shadow and I hope you can start to think more about the use of the black pixel. I don’t expect everyone to be on my side but it’s nice to know there are many like-minded photographers. Thank you for taking time to add your comment.
PaulOn December 21, 2011 at 1:17 pm • Reply
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Thank you for a most enjoyable article, Paul.
I agree! Being relatively new to landscape photography, I am vary aware of the lure of finding ‘something there in the shadows’, when first starting out. Over time, I’ve come to think that black and near-black are fine, and in many cases enhance the image (more precisely, I think bringing things out of shadows can detract from some images). It’s not even to do with being representative of reality: to me what matters is whether the final image is an attractive/interesting piece of art, and very dark, or black, areas definitely have their place in many compositions. I’m increasingly finding myself reducing exposure, post-capture, in order to add to the image artistically, by removing shadow detail and hence enhancing the main subject matter.
A fine selection of images you’ve used to illustrate this article, and I’d like to repeat my comment on Flickr earlier today that the charcoal & leaves image is a stunning piece of work!
Mike
On December 30, 2011 at 9:50 pm • Reply -
JonSparks
Thanks for this, really useful corrective to the prevailing orthodoxy.
And I also liked iant’s comment about “tone compression (AKA HDR)”. I bought a book on HDR a while back and then discovered that I hated nearly every image in it. Which doesn’t mean that there’s no place for merging of bracketed exposures but needs some aesthetic sense applied…. maybe it’s time for a critical look at the HDR cult?
On January 3, 2012 at 7:46 am • Reply-
Thanks Jon,
Even though your first line sounds like you’ve been eating dictionaries!
I’m glad you’ve raised the issue of merging bracketed exposures as it is something I’m quite happy to do myself when it is needed. It still has to be done with a certain amount of restraint though, as you imply, as it can quite easily ruin a shot if used poorly. I’ve seen some images where HDR has been used carefully but most of them were verging on overkill. Some may disagree!
Thanks again Jon,
PaulOn January 3, 2012 at 1:47 pm • Reply -
Good Man, Jon. IMHO, HDR is the biggest pseudo-techno money-spinner that I’ve seen in many years of togging. “High dynamic range”, eh? Wot tosh. It should be called CRTC – “Catastrophic and Random Tone Compression”. Until someone develops a method of actually DISPLAYING (oh, and then being able to SEE with one’s human vision) the super-wide dynamic range of stacked multiple bracketed expsures, it has no place in the serious photographer’s vocabulary. Black is black and white is white (OK, ‘superwhite’ if you put a lamp behind it and overload your retinae!) and whilst you may introduce finer and finer increments of resolution in the input tone curve, you will not see any real difference in the output if presented on traditional media like a screen or print, simply because you HAVE to compress the result to be able to print/display it with any linearity. Oh, unless, that is, you play about with the tone translation curve to give the impression that you have done something magical, which is what most so-called HDR attempts actually do. And my God, don’t most such attempts look dreadful. As a method, It was interesting for about five minutes more than was a similar fashion for colour-popping in monochrome shots.
OK, if you like it, fair ’nuff for you but please stop pretending that it is truly High Dynamic Range. It confuses the hell out of the natives.On January 4, 2012 at 12:49 pm • Reply
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