When people first begin using a digital camera, they tend to look at the LCD screen to see a miniature version of the shot they just took. Although the preview may provide some clues about composition and whether the image is grossly out of focus, the real value is being able to check the histogram. The histogram gives instant feedback about the exposure.

Digital guru Ellen Anon will guide you through histograms in this class. She will give you a gentle introduction to what a histogram is and how to read one and show you plenty of example images with their corresponding histograms. She’ll explain what type of histogram to look for depending on the image you shot. Believe it or not, there’s no one perfect histogram for every photograph! This class and the included exercises will help you learn how to nail your exposure perfectly.

This course contains 21 pages of text and images.

1. Introduction to histograms
   1. What is a histogram
   2. Determining the ideal histogram for an image
   3. Types of histograms
2. Using the histogram to adjust the in-camera exposure
   1. Exposure compensation and histograms
   2. Determining the perfect exposure
   3. Exposing to the right
3. Histograms for more challenging situations
   1. High contrast images
   2. Low contrast images
   3. With split neutral density filters
   4. Silhouettes
4. Histograms and image optimizing
   1. Levels
   2. Black and white points
   3. Curves
   4. Fixing under and over-exposed images
   5. Fixing low and high-contrast images

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