Too bright, too dark, Just Right

Again, prompted by apparently widely different ideas as to how bright an image should be, let's have a look at what we all think is a natural landscape shot with correct colour and brightness. Here's my interpretation:

Yes that looks natural and correct to me John (unlike the earlier bright sunny shot made to look dark )

Of course this may have also been originally sunny and manipulated but my eyes don't see obvious shadows or contrast indicating that - to me it looks natural, possibly just a hair dark but it was you there at the time it was taken.

You can see shadows, strong shadows, under the hedge to the right and in the door frame. This was a bright sunny moment. I won't say bright sunny day!

Can we see some examples from others?

Surely what looks natural depends upon the available light at the time. There's no right or wrong.

Which is why I specified a natural landscape shot. We have to have some idea as to what constitutes a normal image, surely? We also have a very good idea of what a sunny day looks like, or a misty morning, or anything else we've seen in our lives.

Also depends on your monitor calibration I would have thought.

Saying that John's looks about right to me so my laptop should hopefully be pretty much ok.

That image looks pretty much the same on my monitors, laptops, iPad, iPhone and daughter Hazel's Android phone, so let's not over-think things! Please don't be reticent about posting an example of your own, it would be interesting to see how much variation in perception exists.

Looks about right to me. That's what I'd see as natural - I can see very dark areas within the vegetation, the midtones don't look too heavy and dark, and the pebbles are very light without going too white. But there are a few completely white touches (a couple of flowers, the window frames) - again this is what you'd expect to see.

If I post an image here then you cannot possibly know how bright the original scene was and therefore how it 'should' look. How could you tell?

How do you know that the light gathering and processing capabilities of everyone's retina and brain is the same. An example, my kids often squint away in light that I don't, so I guess they perceive the scene brighter than I do.

Colour vision certainly varies. For instance, I simply cannot tell the brown and red ball in snooker apart. So I see colour differently from you.

So does contrast. Your eye wouldn't see those shadows so dark, nowhere near.

For those that wish to document a scene faithfully there is one approach for those that wish to apply artistic licence there is another. I don't see why one approach can be considered correct.

Brightness and colour are not absolute concepts for me, it all depends how they are measured and there is no standard natural instrument for that.

Corfe castle (if you look hard) this weekend then. Sunny spell on a greyish day but very flat mid day light, this is about as bright as my memory recalls (monitor is calibrated).

Why not post one and see what everyone thinks? All I'm asking is that you post something that you consider accurate. It's out of interest, not something designed to trick you.

Thank you gwing! Let's have some more now...

Well, I don't know... if I look into the garden right now, I can see trees where the darker interior parts of the vegetation look extremely dark, and the bright sky makes me see them as almost black (although if I peer really hard, I can tell they're not).

I don't think that's the objective - JR set out pretty clearly that we are talking about what we consider a 'natural landscape shot', and when he says 'here's my interpretation', it doesn't much sound like he's implying there's only one correct answer (his).

O.k. this is from a visit to Chatsworth, end of May last year. A glorious sunny day. This image seems to me to be a 'natural' representation of the scene.

And out of my window just now, so I know this one is accurate, at least on my screen. Default exposure, default raw processing, completely untouched.

An
d I know the lawn needs cutting, and before anyone comments, the shot is level, the bench isn't

This one was easy as the area probably represents the gray point the meter assumes. For the above 'corfe' shot I had to brighten it a bit as otherwise it is presented as 18% grey - which it wasn't.