in this today we're gonna be talking about some tips, and tricks to expand the dynamic range without clipping in Photoshop makes sense no let me make it sense for you you see sometimes images don't take full potential of what the screen has to offer they don't take full potential of the brightness level that the screen has to represent or the number of colors the screen can show, so how to make it take advantage of that here so have a look at this photo this is pretty faded right if you open the histogram look at the histogram on the x-axis of histogram of the horizontal axis of histogram, we have different brightness levels on the y-axis of histogram, we have the number of pixels in that particular brightness level, so as you can see in this on the x-axis we have different brightness level the left rego darker the brightness level the bright we go the brighter the area the brighter the pixels they represent, and y-axis the number of pixels so for this brightness level for the mid-tones we have, so many pixels as compared do we have of the darker areas so we don't have much pixels in the darker area also, we don't have much pixels in the brighter areas so as you can see this image is not taking full advantage of the dynamic range that the screen has to offer this is the limit okay.
these two corners are the limit if the pixel goes beyond the left corner or the right corner it's go click now let's understand what clipping means in form of an audio file for a better understanding you have seen an audio file right what does an audio file have it has waves now suppose I boost up I pump up the input levels of my microphone, and also I increase the input levels of my laptop to the maximum value possible okay, I boost it I do everything everything to the max pedals of the metal and then what would the wave look like the wave would be this white high amplitude right now what if I'm speaking very loudly on top of that it would go haywire here's the thing the microphone has a limit the laptop also has a limit currently.
I'm speaking at this rate the levels are fine currently the levels are this if I go ahead increase said everything to max I start speaking loudly the levels would be like this but the limit is say this levels are going this right now the limit is this it's pretty fine the signal is pure, but if I put everything to max the waves are like this but the limit is this, so what would the wave look like they would look like this they would go up get hit by the wall get hit by the limiter get straight go down go up straight go down go up straight, so the information here beyond the limit that's all lost right so that's clipping it's clipping if he clipping happens in an image when an area is so bright or, so dark that it cannot show any detail it becomes so bad that if you sample an area from that bright spot the hex code would be ffffff and it becomes so dark sometimes by clipping that if you pick the sample from that area the hex code would be zero, make sense no let me show you so if we make it very bright so if you open the brightness and contrast make it very bright just like that and this area is totally clipping if we take a sample from this area so let's go ahead and select this,
and if we take a sample from this area it's showing Fe which means it's not completely bright it it's not completely clipping if we go totally haywire like this maybe then we go yes have a look it's totally bright totally clipping now similarly if we go ahead, and take it all the way down maybe now if we sample this area see it's totally dark look at the hex code it's zero six, but if we take it's not clipping yet it will clip when the values are zero let's add another brightness contrast just to pump it up now let's sample that area okay, let's select at this and then sample have a look at this area zero zero zero zero zero zero that area is completely clipping, sothat's what clipping is so let's go ahead and delete those so how do we expand the dynamic range without clipping you see the brightest area in this image is not taking the full advantage of the range that the screen has to offer similarly it happens with the darkest pixel see the darkest pixel should be touching just touching not beyond just touching the corner it's not so how to do that let me show you a tip,
so add a curves adjustment layer okay press and hold alt or option take the slider off the left to the right slowly and gradually, and as soon as it begins to show some signs some symbols or some I don't know what to say it, but as soon as it begins to show something you should stop these areas are the areas which are clipping it means that they are, so dark that it doesn't have any details, and the hex code is six zeros right, so you need to find a happy place where it just begins to show those signs so this is okay we can go a little further just like this similarly do it with this one press and hold alt or option, and just expand this take it to the left, and as soon as it begins to show those artifacts stop this area so bright that it doesn't have any details,
so sure stop right here and it's fine now look at the histogram, so it's totally expanded the last pixel is touching the left corner the bright pixel the bright Spect pixel is touching the right corner it's taking the full advantage of the representation from the screen let's have a look at the before, and after so before it's not taking the full advantage now it's taking the full advantage, but here's the catch if you are applying the faded effect then it's a completely different story right if you are deliberately applying something like the faded effect or something like this maybe go a little brighter, and then apply that faded effect then it will block here it won't take full advantage of this because you are deliberately applying that that's a whole different story, but if you want the image to take complete advantage of this this is the way let me show you another thing how to do this automatically if you know which areas are the darkest or the brightest.
so have a look at this Perot in this photo let's try to do that automatically as you can see in this - it's not taking full advantage of the dynamic range, and this is one of the ways to make image pop okay, so similarly open the curves adjustment layer in the curves adjustment layer you see this eyedropper tool they're meant for something right one of the eyedropper tool has black tip one has great tip, and one has white tip and they are very indicative the white tip is for selecting the brightest area the black tip is from selecting the darkest area, and the gray tip is something which we'll discuss later so black tip select the area that you think is the darkest I think this one okay.
look at what a dramatic change it has made now select this one, and select the brightest area which you think is the brightest Wow amazing now if you want to get the color right maybe something like the white balance what you need to do select the gray eye dropper tool, and click on something which should have been grey during the shoot in real life as you can see there's a blue tint here in real life it's gray right his sweater, so click on that sweater instantly that colors improve how look at the before and after before after, so that's pretty much it some little tips and tricks about improving or extending the dynamic range, and then we learnt what clipping is and how to prevent it and how to use those three eyedropper to to our advantage I hope this blog helps you.
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