Why Expose to the Right Makes More Sense Than Ever

We’ve all heard the phrase expose to the right at one time or another, but what does it mean and what’s the point of doing it. Well when you look at the header image, the one on the left was exposed to the right and the one on the right is, to coin a phrase, right, built solely on the original on the left.

It all comes down to how sensors work. Let’s say that your camera sensor has eleven stops of dynamic range. That means it divides (mostly equally) the steps between full black and full white. The thing is that sensors see less data, the less light there is and more data, the more light there is. Now remember that we control how much light the sensor sees via our exposure settings. Let’s say that at the level of black your sensor has four units of light sensitivity. The next level towards white has eight units of light sensitivity. The third level up has 16 units of light sensitivity. You get the picture. Every level up towards white as twice the number of units of light sensitivity. Run the scale in your mind and you release that by the time you get to white, there is a massive amount of units of light sensitivity to use.

Back in the days of film, people were told to underexpose for richer colour, but that guidance is completely wrong for digital. In film, overexposure was a killer, but in digital, under exposure pushes data down levels where there are fewer units of light sensitivity and that is hugely destructive.

Because of the increase in units of light sensitivity as we move towards full white, our sensors actually collect more data. This is awesome!

Unfortunately…

Users live by the BS that is the histogram and spend far too much time worrying about overexposure, thinking that it means that everything will be blown out. The facts belie this disinformation.

Since most photographers don’t know how to use the spot meter in their camera and even then don’t understand what it tells them, the classical skill of spot metering is long dead and most photographers are too lazy to learn how to use the spot meter properly. So I am going to skip this tool completely, even though proper use is a huge advantage.

So here is the very simple FULL prescription to get more data into your photographs.

If you use your light meter and find that you get decent looking exposures on the LCD or in the electronic viewfinder if your camera has one. This is where you start. Shoot in RAW. This is not the time to capture good data and then throw most of it away to make a JPEG.

Next, using whatever mode that you shoot in, you are going to intentionally overexpose your image by two full stops, such as setting +2 on the exposure compensation setting.

Now look at the image on the rear LCD or in the EVF. If you did it right, the image that you see should look overexposed, and the lighter areas of the image should look blown out. Now you must accept that this is a GOOD thing.

Make another image of the same scene that is three stops overexposed, and if you can, make one that is four stops overexposed.

At this point, most people are freaking out thinking that they are wasting time and effort. Those people are wrong. Take your memory cards to your computer and in whatever you use for processing your images, reduce the exposure by however many stops you overexposed each image. This is essential.

Now stop and look at the highlights that you were sure were blown out and see that there is actually data there. Cool!

Using the whites, blacks, highlights and shadows sliders adjust your image to maximize all the detail in the highlights and all the shadows as well. This is where the magic comes because you have a lot more data in the blacks and shadows, plus because the sensor is so good, you have not lost data in the highlights and the whites.

The Proof is in the Photo

Original Image, overexposed in camera 3 stops

At first glance, you would likely throw this image away. But you would be wrong. It was shot with ETTR in mind and in plan. As it came out of camera, this is what you would see, although I did use the Transform function to keep the building from falling over as well as Lens Corrections that get applied on import. However because I used the power of the sensor to gather data best in the brightest areas (and NEVER use a histogram in camera), I was pretty confident that I could make something of it. I did do a test frame at the recommended exposure and while it looked ok, it was nowhere near as decent as the following ETTR image after editing.

SAME IMAGE AFTER EDITING using only WHITE, BLACK, HIGHLIGHT and SHADOW sliders

This is the first image, yes the same file, after use of the tools in the Basic panel in Lightroom Classic. I used the White, Black, Highlight and Shadow sliders to produce this output after using the Exposure slider to drop things three stops. Because I had so much data in the RAW file, I was able to get superb detail in the doorway under the awning, that had dropped into the much in the standard exposure test. Despite the lack of nice clouds, I was able to get those subtle highlights to come back, even though they looked completely gone in the working image. By using this method, I was able to extend the dynamic range of the single shot to the same extent as an HDR using 5 shots, without the hassle, the file size or the annoying HDR side effects.

Most importantly, it is a better photograph than I got using the camera’s recommended exposure with better shadow detail and retained highlights. Yes I had to edit the image, but that is a given when doing ETTR.

Wrapping It Up

That’s it. You intentionally overexpose and then in your editor you adjust the image to bring in the detail. Experiment with your camera and your sensor to learn how far over you can push the sensor and still recover the highlights. The greater the dynamic range of the sensor, the harder you can push it. More data in the file means more data to work with and that’s always a win.

To close the loop, someone will ask what if they had done it the other way, underexpose as on film and then just lift the exposure in post. The answer is a massive sucking sound, because in that case you will have less data in every brightness zone, and when you lift the exposure in processing that lower level of signal will bring with it ALL the noise. If you are going to err in digital, ALWAYS err on overexposure. There is no good to be found EVER in underexposing with a sensor. If this sounds like a slam against HDR, you are 100% correct and is a concrete reason why the HDR bs in the latest Lightroom Classic and in Adobe Camera RAW is nothing but offal.

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