Banishing dull photos: The Digital Photographic Problem and the Zone System Solution

Photographers of all experience levels sometimes have difficulty getting the colors bright and clear in their digital photographs. A set of raw captures from a shoot may not reflect the same range of colors the photographer saw at the shoot; the colors appear dull and even the forms of the subjects may seem to have merged into a monotonous mid-tone, making the photos boring.



Good Raw Capture vs. Post-Fix



While it may be tempting for the novice to think that correction post-capture (i.e. Photoshop tweaking) is the only solution, he would do well to consider the words of photography icon Ansel Adams:

"We cannot create something from nothing—we cannot correct poor focus, loss of detail, physical blemishes, or unfortunate compositions". Even though, in this digital age, retouching can remove blemishes, other elements of a photograph like sharpness, contrast, exposure and composition, require forethought and skill. Most importantly, the attention to the balance of dark and light areas of the photograph that will have the largest impact on the quality of the image.



The lens and the human eye



The lens of a camera creates photographs similar to the way the human eye makes pictorial imagery: by capturing light and then sending impulses to the brain which then interprets the data as pictures. The camera lens captures light in the form of photons striking receptor sites on a silicon wafer – these are converted into electrical signals and further processed to yield a digital image. The digital camera actually only reads value or brightness. This creates the shadows and highlights that make up a photographic image.



Colors appear only afterwards, during the processing phase, by comparing the different brightness levels from the camera sensor’s red, green and blue filters. The human visual system perceives "form" from the varying levels of light and dark within a scene. The variance in light and dark make up the detail of the photograph, without this detail, we would not be able to see a discernable image. Color itself is not as important as value structure in a photographic image.



Incorporate Visualization



Attention to visualizing a photograph before actually taking it is of the utmost importance in the Zone System. During the mid-twentieth century when the art of photography was taking form, Ansel Adams was highly influential in developing the techniques and systems we still use in creating images today. He once wrote that the emotional-mental process of visualizing a composition was one of the most important concepts in photography. "It includes the ability to anticipate a finished image before making the exposure, so that the procedures employed will contribute to achieving the desired result."



Tonality was, for Adams, at the heart of the Zone System. He was careful to measure the contrast range of a scene before capturing an image, and only then employed post-processing techniques to enhance the value structure. Although digital mechanics differ from the methods used in Adams day, the ability to envision your composition is still of paramount importance. If you can see and control the way the dark and light details in your photograph will interact, you can effect a major enhancement of your image.



For a FREE PDF tutorial showing some of these techniques visit: http://on.fb.me/gop7hj