highlight detail, shadow detail

• The “highlight” areas of a photograph are the lightest areas (approaching white).

• The “shadow” areas of a photograph are the darkest areas (approaching black).

• The terms “highlight detail” and “shadow detail” refer to how many details of the subject the viewer can see in the brightest and darkest areas of the photograph.

• To meet P7, a photograph cannot misrepresent the appearance of the scene.

TTG photographers have some leeway in how they depict the brightest and darkest areas in photographs, but the result must meet rinairs or it will be disqualified by P7 and thus from TTG.

Loss of one or the other but not both

Rinairs allows for the reality that photographs generally do not have the same “dynamic range” — the ability to simultaneously see details in both dark areas and bright areas — that the human eye has.

This means that rinairs allows photographers to

• “expose for the shadow areas” even at the expense of some highlight areas (for example, depicting a blown-out sky), or to

• “expose for the highlight areas” even at the expense of some shadow areas (for example, depicting a silhouette).

However, selecting a contrast level so high that considerable “shadow detail” and “highlight detail” are both lost can keep a photograph from meeting the rinairs standard for non-misrepresentation.

The photograph is then disqualified from P7 and from TTG.

How much can TTG photographers brighten and darken select areas of the photograph?

NOTE: These issues are only of concern to photographers who manually change their photographs after the exposure. Most every digital camera or device that functions as it was designed to function will automatically produce in almost any situation TTG-compatible brightness/darkness relationships.

TTG photographers who manually change brightness relationships in their photographs after the photo is recorded cannot make extreme changes to select areas of the photograph:

1. If apart from overall brightness/contrast settings the dark areas are made significantly darker or the bright areas are made significantly brighter, such that the depictions of things in those areas are deleted or markedly obscured—

— then the photograph would be disqualified from rinairs, from P7, and from TTG.

“Revealing more of the subject, not less of it”

2. On the other hand, if brightness relationships are compromised — as can be done by using HDR to excess — such that the darker “shadow” areas are excessively brightened or the brighter (“highlight”) areas are excessively darkened—

— then the photograph would be disqualified from rinairs, from P7, and from TTG.