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Histogram - up to speed

Learning to use the Video Adjustments panel effectively involves learning about its histogram, the colorful little graph at the top of the panel. The histogram is a self-updating visual representation of the dark and light tones that make up your video clip. If you’ve never encountered a histogram before, this may sound complicated. But the histogram is a terrific tool, and it’ll make more sense the more you work with it. Within each of the superimposed graphs (red, blue, and green), the scheme is the same: The clip’s darker shades appear toward the left side of the graph; the lighter tones are graphed on the right side. Therefore, in a very dark clip—a coalmine at midnight, say—you’ll see big mountain peaks at the left side of the graph, trailing off to nothing toward the right. A shot of a brilliantly sunny snowscape, on the other hand, will show lots of information on the right, and very little on the left. The best-balanced shots have some data spread across the entire histogram, with a few mountain-shaped peaks here and there. Those peaks and valleys represent the really dark spots and bright spots. Those mountains are fine, as long as you have some visual information in other parts of the histogram, too.