Mastering the Histogram in Photoshop

 Jan 31, 2014

The Histogram is one of the most useful tools available in Photoshop for viewing and editing the exposure of images. A histogram is a graph which shows the ‘tonal range’ of an image, which is basically the brightness values of an image. A histogram shows how much of an image is pure black (on the very left of the graph) and how much is pure white (the very right of the graph), and the levels of the colours that are somewhere in between.
Modifying the tonal range can help improve those images that appear to be a little flat, but before you jump straight in and play around with the brightness and contrast, it is important to take a look at the histogram panel to see where the problem really lies. To view the Histogram panel, open an image in Photoshop (in versions CS3, CS4, CS5 and CS6) and then choose Window > Histogram. By default, as seen in the image below, the bar graph displays.

Histogram in Photoshop

From the Histogram panel’s pop-up menu, you can choose ‘Expanded View’ to show the statistical information displayed in the graph (as seen in the image below). In this view, you can also choose to show the histogram of specific layers from the ‘Source’ pop-up menu (only available in a document with multiple layers). If you choose ‘All Channels View’, a graph for each colour channel is shown separately on the panel.

Histogram in Photoshop

One of the great features about the Histogram panel is that it’s dynamic. As you make tonal corrections with the ‘Levels’ command, you can see a before and after view of the histogram on the Histogram panel. The darker portion on the graph is the adjusted histogram while the faded portion represents the original histogram.

Histogram-3

You also have the ability to refresh the histogram display to view the image’s true histogram. Simply click the ‘Cached Data Warning’ button or the ‘Uncached Refresh’ button. Both are located in the upper-right corner of the panel and appear when Photoshop is showing a cached version of the histogram rather than the image’s true histogram. The cached version displays more quickly and requires less memory, but it isn’t completely accurate.

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New Horizons  

New Horizons is Australia’s leading corporate training provider, and has been educating business professionals for over 15 years in the areas of Professional Development, Microsoft Office & Adobe Applications, and IT Technical. Our aim through this blog is to bring you relevant stories, articles, and tips & tricks that can help you to improve your skills and productivity in the workplace. Our expert trainers will also be posting their own articles from time to time, so be sure to keep an eye out.

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