Kept cranking up the contrast on every piece until a gallery owner asked me why my shadows were so crushed

I was at a show last spring in Austin and this old guy who runs a gallery on South Congress saw my print and asked if I edited on a phone. I said yeah mostly. He told me my blacks were eating all the detail and that I was basically painting with mud. Pulled up one of my old files right there on his laptop and showed me the histogram. It was all jammed up on the left side. Felt dumb but I've been backing off the contrast slider ever since and my stuff actually looks like what I thought I was making. Anyone else get called out for something basic they never noticed?

3 comments

3 Comments

lewis.charlie1mo agoMost Upvoted

Did your buddy's blacks look like a black hole too? My friend had a similar thing happen when a professor told him his prints looked like they were dipped in ink.

ruby_lane1mo agoTop Commenter

@lewis.charlie honestly it's crazy how easy it is to crush your blacks without noticing, i did the same thing for years. someone finally showed me my histogram was just a wall on the left and i felt like an idiot. once you fix it your images actually breathe, it's wild how blind you can be to it.

the_phoenix1mo ago

Crushed blacks are way overblown as a problem in my opinion. I've seen plenty of photos with deep shadows that look totally intentional and moody. You can get hung up on technical perfection all day but sometimes it just doesn't matter.