ETTR--losing contrast?

When "exposing to the right," do you find a loss of contrast in the highlights (ie sky for landscapes). I understand the

exposure works, but I seem to spend a lot of post-production time repairing the contrast (and unable to finish it

completely in some cases).

IF you expose to the right correctly, then you catch the maximum amount of information without loosing any. Now it may be that you like the higlights to have a brightness of less then the maximum value and with correctly applied ETTR that's easily adjusted. If you have to spend a lot of time "repairing the contrast", unsuccessfully sometimes, then I propose you are not applying ETTR correctly.

Thank you for your response. I guess the length of time I spend repairing, could have to do with my PS skills. How

would you describe proper use of ETTR?

There's no need for "repair" since ETTR doesn't cause damage when properly applied. If you maximize expose without causing any highlights to be blown out, there's no damage; on the contrary, you would have the image information spread out over the greatest possible tonality range resulting in the greatest dynamic range and the lowest amount of noise in the shadows.

As was noted by Frans Waterlander, ETTR optimizes the image's dynamic range by having the histogram fill the right hand side to the extent possible without highlight clipping. Specular highlights should, of course, be allowed to blowout.

 

Many ETTR shots will look a little too bright, but that is easily adjusted in RAW conversion. Using DPP, simply set the Brightness Adjustment slider to darken the image in the range of 0.17 to 0.5 stop. This step is part of a raw workflow. It is not a repair, as the image was correctly exposed for ETTR objectives. Also, this step should be done by the RAW converter (and not Photoshop) for the best results.

Ok, so I guess I'm doing things right. Thanks, gentlemen.

Tim,

 

There shouldn't be any need to spend a lot of time getting the contrast back in your highlights. If you have applied ETTR correctly, then you can do it very quickly in ACR when you convert the RAW.

 

In ACR, the "Exposure" slider controls the position of the white point and the "Blacks" slider controls the position of the black point.

 

So if you have a histogram that is shifted to the right but with no clipped highlights, then as a workflow you should be able to :

 

1. set the white balance first

2. go straight to the "Blacks" slider and drag it to the right to set your black point (if you hold the alt or opt key, it will show you when you start to block the shadows)

 

After those two quick steps the should already see an increase in contrast because you would have stretched the histogram out over almost the full range available.

 

3. go back up to the "exposure" slider and set your white point for the finer setting of the brightest part of your image

4. use the "Brightness" slider to adjust the distribution of tones, or if you prefer, use the tone curve option (although in the RAW converter it's primarily designed for fine control, not gross movements).

 

That's a workflow that you should be able to apply within seconds.

 

Regards,

 

Peter

Thanks, Peter. I'm going to reference your advice the next time I process an image.