# Histogram looks wrong for certain images



## escaladieu (Sep 15, 2013)

I was messing around this pm calibrating my D800 exposure against a grey card & snapping a yellow flower. I was a bit surprised when importing the images in LR 5.2RC to see the the Histogram very different from the camera histogram. So I checked the raw file in Photoshop & it matched the camera histogram, ditto viewnx & also faststone image viewer. The two histograms are below. 










The Lightroom histogram looks a lot like the luminosity histogram in Faststone image viewer. Is there any setting in LR that controls type of histogram RGB vs Luminosity for example ?


----------



## Glenn NK (Sep 16, 2013)

The camera cannot display a RAW file, so it generates an in-camera JPEG which it displays on the LCD.  Even if you shoot only RAW, it must still generate a JPEG for the LCD.

The histograms will of necessity be different; note the dramatic changes to the histogram of a RAW file when you PP it.

Off topic, but related:  if you want to shoot RAW, and also want to shoot ETTR, then adjust the in-camera Contrast to minus two or minus three.  This will adjust the in-camera JPEG so it more closely matches the developed RAW file.  I'm not suggesting you should shoot ETTR, that choice is up to you.

Incidentally, I never judge a file by its appearance on the camera's LCD - it can be very misleading.


----------



## escaladieu (Sep 16, 2013)

Glenn NK said:


> The camera cannot display a RAW file, so it generates an in-camera JPEG which it displays on the LCD.  Even if you shoot only RAW, it must still generate a JPEG for the LCD.
> 
> The histograms will of necessity be different; note the dramatic changes to the histogram of a RAW file when you PP it.
> 
> ...



Thanks for the response - but does not address my question: I'll re-phrase it: why does a raw file histogram in LR5.2RC look considerably different from the histogram displayed  in Photoshop & 
viewnx ? The histogram displayed in Photoshop & viewnx closely matches the camera histogram, but in LR it does not.


----------



## MarkNicholas (Sep 16, 2013)

Probably because the settings that are applied to the file in LR are different from the settings that are applied in those other programmes.


----------



## escaladieu (Sep 16, 2013)

Did a few more experiments this morning. A shot with mixed tones yields same Histogram in both PS and lightroom. So the abnormality seems to be with an image which is predominantly all yellow (or maybe all one tone). I'll experiment further.


----------



## Glenn NK (Sep 16, 2013)

escaladieu said:


> Thanks for the response - but does not address my question: I'll re-phrase it: why does a raw file histogram in LR5.2RC look considerably different from the histogram displayed  in Photoshop &
> viewnx ? The histogram displayed in Photoshop & viewnx closely matches the camera histogram, but in LR it does not.



I'm not familiar with the Nikon software; the Canon proprietary software will automatically use the camera settings to develop a RAW file (so I suspect other proprietary software does also), but Lightroom and Photoshop do not interpret these settings.

As for interpreting/comparing histograms, I seldom pay much attention to them (except for the clipping points), as it seems that the shapes of a histogram vary widely with small changes in the input variables.  I have images taken mere seconds apart with identical camera settings that don't look the same (a frequent occurrence when focus stacking).


----------



## JimHess43 (Sep 18, 2013)

Glenn has given you the right answer.  Lightroom cannot read those camera settings.  Proprietary software can read them.  After Lightroom has built its own preview of the image it will display the histogram for that image as it came from the camera, not from the in-camera adjustments that were made.  It's unrealistic to expect the histograms to match.


----------



## Bryan Conner (Sep 19, 2013)

But, the OP stated that the histogram of the same image appears different in Lightroom from the file in Photoshop. 

To the OP:  How exactly are you transferring the image from Lightroom into Photoshop?


----------

