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Midpoint adjustment
Changing the midpoint to alter the balance between light and dark.
The techniques
The sample images for these tutorials are available for download as a zipped folder.
Please note. The images in this tutorial section are for personal non commercial teaching use only. If you are a school or other public educational establishment, you may use them as long as you inform Northlight Images of the use. They may not be used in -any- other way without the express consent of Northlight Images - see our usage and copyright page for more information.
Feedback is always welcome! ---
Northlight Images also provides commercial photography training courses for businesses, including specialist Photography training for Estate Agents and for Product Photography.
Open the image midpoint.jpg
The image is quite dark, but if you look carefully you will see there is plenty of detail in the dark areas.
Open the Histogram and look at the distribution of bright and dark parts of the image.
The black area represents the distribution of lighter and darker pixels in the image.
Notice how a large part of the data is to the left (dark), but also the small spike at the right which represents the bright area around the window.
The Histogram can be one of the most useful quick checks as to an image quality.
Open the Levels adjustment.
As a general rule -avoid- the using the brightness/contrast adjustments. There are much better ways of getting the changes you want.
Move the midpoint over to the left
Moving it to the left makes the picture lighter.
When you are happy, click OK to change the image.
Now look again at the histogram.
See how the image is less bunched up over to the left (dark).
This simple adjustment allows you to easily bring up detail that is lost in shadows. You have changed the distribution of light and dark areas in the image. This is -not- the same as just turning up the brightness (try to get the same effect with the brightness adjustment if you're not sure).
There are, as we will see, more refined ways of changing the image for similar effects, but a quick midpoint adjustment is often all an image needs.
The techniques
The sample images for these tutorials are available for download as a zipped folder.
Please note. The images in this tutorial section are for personal non commercial teaching use only. If you are a school or other public educational establishment, you may use them as long as you inform Northlight Images of the use. They may not be used in -any- other way without the express consent of Northlight Images - see our usage and copyright page for more information.
Feedback is always welcome! ---
Northlight Images also provides commercial photography training courses for businesses, including specialist Photography training for Estate Agents and for Product Photography.
Other areas of our site that may be of interest...
NEW -- Create your own customised A3 size wall calendar from a choice of 90 of Keith's images. Choose your own images for your own custom printed calendar - 12 months starting any month of the year - many all new images not yet in our main gallery.
Digital Black and White. Keith was recently interviewed about digital black and white photography for a magazine article. We have an expanded version here covering some of his thoughts, techniques and tips for those thinking of trying black and white.
As well as our Commercial Photography services and Training there is a growing collection of photography Articles and Reviews on the site aimed at helping you get the best out of your own photography. We also have a growing collection of Photography related information and links that we hope you find useful.
New site features and some of Keith Cooper's latest work are always covered in the What's New page.
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