Personal tip on Clipped Pixels colours and threshold

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tomczak
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Personal tip on Clipped Pixels colours and threshold

Post by tomczak »

It may seem a trivial issue, but I was struggling with the intuitive set of colours for a bit.

Since v. 8.0.56, there is a possibility to set two different clipped pixels warning colours for each, highlights and shadows in Settings/Cllipped Pixels.

The first set of colours indicates that at least one or two (but not three) RGB channels being at or below the threshold value for shadows and at or above the threshold value for highlights. The second set of colours indicate that all three RGB channels being below or above the thresholds, respectively.

The first condition is less strict than the second one (i.e. blowing all 3 channels would already trigger the 1 or 2 channels warning), but probably more important practically.

While any combination of warning colours and threshold values may work, I found these settings intuitive and easy to interpret.
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Maciej Tomczak
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Marpel
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Re: Personal tip on Clipped Pixels colours and threshold

Post by Marpel »

Maciej,

I found I had to change the highlight clipping colour as I shoot a lot of sunset/rise images and the clipping colour was getting lost in the image.

But the real reason for my post - I'm curious why you set the numbers to 250 and 5. Are these chosen for an image that is intended to be viewed on a monitor or printed? Or does that even make a difference.

Although you mention any numbers would work, I have always had clipping set to 254 and 1 and am wondering if there is a reason to change.

Marv
jsachs
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Re: Personal tip on Clipped Pixels colours and threshold

Post by jsachs »

Personally, I use 255 and 0 -- this lets you know if any channel is maxed out. The clipping color is engaged when a channel is less than or equal or greater than or equal.
Jonathan Sachs
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tomczak
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Re: Personal tip on Clipped Pixels colours and threshold

Post by tomczak »

Marv,

The only reason for setting the threshold to less than min/max was the 'early warning' idea that I'm approaching limits. It's probably too conservative and Jonathan may be right. I had no specific output in mind - I pretty much always want to see when pixel values may be maxed out.

One example that came to mind right now that could justify leaving a bit of room at the top and bottom is adjusting the image before sharpening or local contrast enhancement when you know that some v. bright pixels will get bumped up even higher (and v. dark even lower) after sharpening/LCE.

As for colours, I tried different combinations but I couldn't memorise them... Since almost always one or two channels are blown/blocked before all are, I end up, for blown sunsets for example, with black middle in red corona, which is easy to see when I toggle the clipping button - although red may not be the best choice for sunsets, I still stand by black all-channels-blown scheme. Same for blocked shadows (white middle in yellow coronas).
Maciej Tomczak
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jsachs
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Re: Personal tip on Clipped Pixels colours and threshold

Post by jsachs »

It probably makes sense to use dark colors as a highlight warning and light colors as a shadow warning as this guarantees at least brightness contrast.
Jonathan Sachs
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Marpel
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Re: Personal tip on Clipped Pixels colours and threshold

Post by Marpel »

Thanks,

I think I will use the black and white colours as suggested, at least for all channels clipped.

Marv
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