Is a little shadow clipping acceptable when editing photos?
Asked 2/2/2016
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When editing in Lightroom or Photoshop, I watch the histogram clipping warnings closely and often raise the blacks until the blue shadow-clipping warning disappears. Sometimes the clipped area is tiny and only visible in the histogram, but removing it can reduce overall contrast.
Is it best practice to avoid any black clipping at all, or is a small amount of pure black acceptable? When should I worry about clipped shadows, and when can they be left alone as part of the image style?
Originally by Photography Stack Exchange contributor. Source · Licensed CC BY-SA 4.0
Photography Stack Exchange contributor
10y ago
2 Answers
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The questions are:
Are you losing detail in the black region that affects the quality of your photo? E.g. if you have some dark texture there, clipping at black would kind of make the photo more sterile, although it is much harder to notice that in black areas.
Also, black areas usually suffer from noise, and a heavy clipping at black will remove that. Note: if your image has ISO, etc. noise (or grain) overall, a perfect black area will be unrealistic.
Are you going to postprocess the image? Are you going to curve it further, adjust brightnes/contrast/etc.? If so, you should be aware of how much detail you lose in the black area.
In general, the color and contrast reproduction capability of your final medium should determine how much clipping is acceptable for you.
I usually put an Adjustment layer in Photoshop above my image that makes the visible composite 10-15% (or even more) brighter and add more contrast as well (without clipping), and edit the black areas like that. This way no scratches, picture errors go unnoticed. When I am done, and the image is pleasing for the eye, I remove the adjustment layer, and consider the black areas done. Same can be done on the white adjustments, just with a darkening and more contrast adjustment layer (watch out, as the extra contrast can create clipping if you do it excessively). When I am done with touch-ups, I create a sample final version with all postprocess effects and check if the final image is clipping too much. If so, I correct the brightness on the touched-up version. (The earlier to the original image you do adjustments, the more dynamic range and color information is kept.)
Originally by user24785. Source · Licensed CC BY-SA 4.0
user24785
10y ago
0
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A small amount of black clipping is often perfectly acceptable.
What matters is whether you’re losing shadow detail that actually helps the photo. If clipping removes important texture or detail, it can hurt image quality. But if the clipped area is tiny, unimportant, or part of the intended look, there’s no need to eliminate it just because the histogram shows it.
Deep blacks can also be useful creatively: silhouettes and high-contrast styles often rely on pure black areas. Clipping can even hide shadow noise, which may improve the image in some cases.
A good rule is to judge clipping by the final image and output medium, not by the warning alone. If you plan more tonal adjustments later, be more cautious, since clipped shadows leave less flexibility. If the image already looks right and the black areas don’t contain important detail, a little clipping is fine.
So yes: watching clipping warnings is useful, but treating any tiny shadow clipping as a defect is usually overly critical.
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