Camera Histograms

Here's something to share with you all and get your thoughts and comments.

Being new to CS3, I did the usual thing and bought a variety of books on the subject. As always happens, the best one is the last one purchased (if I had bought this one first, would have not needed the all the others).

The book to which I refer is Adobe Photoshop CS3 for Photographers by Martin Evening. It’s just fantastic IMHO and full of good stuff.

This little gem just blew me away, (page 261 for those who have it) you know how we all check our histograms, well I quote

“The histogram that appears on a compact camera or digital SLR screen is unreliable for anything other than JPEG capture. This is because the histogram you see there is actually based on the camera processed JPEG and is not representative of the true raw capture. The only way to check the histogram for raw capture is to open the image via a raw processing program such as camera raw”

Is this the case for our beloved Pentax DSLR's K10D, K20D etc, or have I missed something?

I agree that Matin Evening's books are exceptional. I have them here for PS7, CS2 and CS3. All full of very valuable and authoritative material.

I think the histogram is a useful guide, but it's only a guide and to be honest I don't use it very often on the camera. I do use it routinely in Photoshop.

As the book says the Histogram is based on the in-camera processed .JPG. Must admit I don't agree with it not being useful however, I use the RGB one frequently & find have found it invaluable on several occasions

simon