Highest Quality Capture: Workflow Phase I - Black and White in Photoshop CS4 and Photoshop Lightroom - page 61

VIII. Histograms in the Digital Darkroom
Monitoring Image Detail with Image Adjustments for
Highest Quality Editing Practice
Maintaining image detail throughout the editing process is absolutely
integral for a high quality print. Once you are sure that you have exposed for
the highest quality capture in-camera by evaluating histograms in the i eld,
careful attention must be applied throughout the editing process ensuring
your image adjustments are not detrimental to the quality of the image data.
Since we already know how to read a histogram, we can use the information
they provide to monitor image data during each major adjustment and
conversion in Photoshop. We can also determine whether image corrections
have been too dramatic, possibly leading to clipping, loss of digital data
including highlight and shadow detail, as well as posterization (see dei nitions
below). As with any and all major editing within the digital darkroom, it
is essential to monitor the histogram during each major adjustment and
conversion. Once again, and it is worth repeating, always start with high bit
capture for the highest quality, especially if you know you are going to have a
heavy hand in image editing. (See “JPEG vs. Raw Capture”, page 30.)