IN THE ZONE
! ! ! ! ! ! ! This document has been created for the www.digitalblackandwhite.co.uk website by Ian Barber Photography 
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Introduction !
The In The Zone e-Book has been written to try and help photographers understand how to adopt the Zone System into their Digital world.!
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There are many documents to be found on the internet that attempt to explain how the Zone System works, some of them good and some bad.!
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This In The Zone e-Book is not a reinvention of the Zone System, nor is it an arbitrary document that must be adhered to in order to enable you to take a photograph.!
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For many photographers, the Zone System in their eyes was something that Ansel Adams created for film photography. Whilst it may my true to say that Ansel Adams was using Film medium when he created the Zone System, this does not mean that the concept cannot be used in the Digital world that we live in today.!
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Technology may have evolved since the Zone System was born, but the principles of Photography still remain the same. We still need to be able to produce a clean image at the point of capture, whether on film or as a digital file. We also still need to develop that image to match our creative vision either in a traditional darkroom or on the computer.! This document will help you understand the importance of capturing an image with the exposure that matches what you visualised at the scene.!
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Once you have an understanding about the benefits of using the Zone System, the idea is that you forget about it. Wait... What do we mean by that? Well, the goal of all of this is to be able to put all the “technology” parts of photography into the backs of our minds so that we can concentrate on the things that are really important to us in photography, being creative.!
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I think it’s fair to say that most of us at some point or another have spent far to long in front of the computer trying our hardest to try and extract something from that file that just didn’t seem to match what we had visualised.!
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Hopefully by reading this document and learning about tone placement, when you bring the file into the digital darkroom, you won’t have to spend time trying to stretch the pixels to correct what you could have achieved at the point of capture.!
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Before The Click.
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As photographers, before we actually press the shutter button, it is probably a safe assumption that we have already made the following decisions, Subject to photograph and Composition!
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Once we have that figured out, we then have the issues of dealing with exposure, trying to figure out whether we can get the correct amount of light on the camera’s digital sensor to capture the dynamic range of the scene without clipping the highlights or shadow areas.!
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Having got this far, It is not uncommon for the photographer to simply press the shutter button, review the image on the back of the camera LCD and move onto taking a picture of something else.!
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There is nothing wrong with this approach if that’s the way you want to take photographs but I bet I am not far off the mark if I was to say that “we are always striving to get something different” from the average point and shoot photographer.!
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Pre - Visualisation
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The famous American Landscape Photographer Ansel Adams always preached a technique he called “revisualisation”. What he was trying to tell us is, see it in your head and try to visualise how you want it to look in the final print before you take the photograph.!
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To try and get our heads around this, lets take a look at the two photographs below.!
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! Composition
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The subject is the church. If you look at the chosen composition, you will notice that I have broken the “rule of thirds” by not placing the church on one of the intersecting lines. Some will frown upon this but as I wanted the church to be the main focus point, I decided to place it near the centre of the frame.!
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Visualisation
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As I stood at looked at the church, I noticed that as soon as the sun broke through the clouds, a pool of light suddenly appeared on the front part of the building.!
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Having already decided that this was going to be converted into a Black and White image, I knew that I could darken the clouds and the blue sky. With this in mind, I could visualise how the contrast between the sunlit church and the dark sky would look. By darkening the trees in the foreground also balanced the image as it goes from dark to light and then to dark.!
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After taking the shot, the only thing that was worrying me was the lack of clouds above the church spire. I waited around but the clouds were hardly moving at all so again through visualisation, I could see that a square crop would suit this image and by doing this, I could move the clouds down in post production.!
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Before pressing the shutter, take a few moments to ask yourself a couple of questions:!
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• Why am I photographing this subject! • What story or mood am I trying to convey to the viewer! • What do I want the photograph to look like when it is completed?!
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! Learning New Things.
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After we have taken that carefully thought out file to the computer, our aim is making a print that is a reflection of our original idea (what we visualised out in the field), As we now have good technology supporting our original idea for a picture, this step should now be more simple.!
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You may have realised at this stage that new things have to be learned and to some of us this can be looked upon as a daunting task but don’t let this put you off because the rewards can be enormous.!
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After these new techniques and ideas have been learned, you can go back to concentrating on what is really important about photography “making images”.!
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One of the new things that you may have to learn if are not already familiar with it is the “Zone System“!
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The Zone System is merely a set of principles that have always existed in photography, presented in such a way that allows us to think about how photography works. These principles are true regardless of whether you’re working with film or with digital.!
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You may have already heard of the term “Zone System” which was thought of by Ansel Adams and some of his close photography colleagues. Between them, they wanted a way which helped them overcome the technical problems of photography; and by doing this would allow them to concentrate more on their ideas.!
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Even in the digital photography age of the 21st century, all these basic principles of exposure and contrast control are still viable.!
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With that, in the next chapter we will take a look at some Photography Basics.
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! Photography Basics
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Before we start learning the Zone System, understanding some of the basics of photographic exposure is important and will certainly help us later on. Getting to grips with these basics is probably something that you already know so if that is the case, please bare with me. I feel that it is important to mention it here so that everyone reading the article is singing from the same hymn sheet.!
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To control the amount of light that enters the camera, we use two devices: Aperture and Shutter.! 
 Aperture: The aperture determines how much light is allowed to enter the camera by it’s size. A large aperture (small f number) will let more light through than a small aperture ( large f number).!
Shutter: The shutter on the other hand controls the amount of light based on time; the longer the shutter is left open for, the greater the amount of light is allowed to enter the camera.!
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By using these two controls in conjunction with one another we can let light into the camera in a variety of ways. Changing the aperture will produce different amounts of depth of field and using different shutter speeds will change the way in which motion is captured.!
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Both the aperture and shutter work in pairs in the sense that each shutter or aperture number lets in either one half as much or twice as much light as the number next to it.!
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For example, f /11 lets in half as much as f /8; and 1/60 of a second lets in twice as much light as 1/125 of a second. This is what is known as having a relationship of 1:2, (twice as much or half as much).!
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As we start to look more closely at the Zone System, you will notice that this also uses a 1:2 relationship.!
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At this stage, we have talked about the relationship between the shutter and aperture to vary the exposure, there is something else that contributes to this which is the ISO value. The ISO setting determines how sensitive the camera sensor is to light.!
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ISO Values! You can also increase/decrease the exposure by changing the ISO setting but one thing to remember is that; The higher you increase the ISO value, the more noise is going to creep into the image. With this in mind, try to keep the ISO as low as you can, somewhere in the region of 100 - 200.!
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Light Meters
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Light meters are designed to give you an exposure value as if that object or scene is a middle grey colour. There are two ways in which light meters can measure light, either by how much light is falling onto the subject or by how much light is been reflected off the subject.!
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Light meters built into the camera.! !
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If you own a digital camera, there is a good chance that it contains its own built in light meter. This type of light meter is known as a reflective light meter and it measures the amount of light which is reflected off the subject to which the camera is pointed at usually based on where the focus point of the camera is set to.!
Whilst we are here it maybe worth noting that your camera may also have a selection of modes which affect the way in which the light meter works.!
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A) Evaluative metering (matrix metering)! B) Centre weighted metering! C) Spot metering!
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! Evaluative (matrix) metering: In this mode, the meter evaluates the entire scene and makes an attempt to aver- age out all the reflected light to a value which represents a middle grey.!
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Centre weighted: In this mode, the meter takes a reading of scene which is weighted more towards the centre of what the focus point is set to.!
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Spot metering: In this mode the meter is only taking a reading of a very small portion of the scene from where the focus point is set to. Usually the spot meter built into digital cameras are calibrated to measure about 2 - 3 degrees. The smaller the degree in which it measures, the more accurate the reading will be. A dedicated hand- held spot meter will more than likely measure at around 1 degree.!
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In order for the camera to give you what it considers to be a correct exposure, the light meter makes an attempt to make everything it sees into middle grey. If this is a new concept to you, try the following experiment.!
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Put the camera into Aperture priority mode and dial in an aperture value of something like f /5.6. Photograph a piece of black paper ensuring that is completely fills the frame and nothing else is visible.!
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Now do the same thing only this time photograph a piece of white paper. Examine both images on the back of the LCD display and you will notice that both pieces of paper appear to be grey in colour.!
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With modern cameras, the light meters are quite accurate and most of the time this works out fairly well, as when the meter sees a variety of objects in the scene, they often average out to middle grey.! Having said that, sometimes you may be faced with a situation where the important subject in the scene is predominantly dark or light, which may fool the camera into giving you an exposure value which does not represent what you are seeing with your own eyes.!
! Lets think about this for a moment.! !
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Based on what we have learnt about the camera light meter wanting to make everything middle grey, lets look at the two images above of a black 13 amp electrical plug.!
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Both images were taken at f /5.6 ISO 200 under the same lighting conditions (natural light).!
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Left Image: The camera meter decided that the correct exposure was 1 second at f /5.6. What the camera meter has done is look at the reflected light, and adjust the shutter speed so that the exposure renders a mid grey. Nothing wrong with that because that is what the light meter is programmed to do. The only issue we have though is that the subject (the plug top in this case) is black, not mid grey.!
! Lets fix it.! !
Based on the fact that the subject is supposed to be black and the camera meter has told us that an exposure of 1 second at f /5.6 will render mid grey, we simply have to lower the exposure. Remember we said that the shutter and aperture have a relationship of 1:2, this means we have 2 choices.!
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A) Stop down the aperture to a bigger number ! B) B) Increase the shutter speed!
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Either option will give us an exposure value that better represents what the eye sees but because I wanted to maintain the depth of field, increasing the shutter speed was the route I went down. In this case, I increased the shutter speed by 1 full stop going from 1 second to 1/2 a second. The result is shown in the image on the right.!
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So how did I determine that we needed to increase the shutter by 1 full stop. The simple answer was, trial and error. I increased the shutter in 1/3 increments until I was happy with the result.!
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Now at this point some of you may be thinking that is actually a third option that we could have done to achieve a more accurate exposure value than using guess work, so in the next chapter, we will discuss this.!
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18% Grey Card Let me introduce you to the 18% Grey Card. ! You may have come across the term 18% grey card at some point. This is simply a device that reflects 18% of the light that falls on it. If you haven’t seen one, any good camera shop usually stock them and they can be a very useful tool to have in your camera bag.!
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The grey card’s reflectance in photography, is the known as the centre point; it is the value that the light meter attempts to create when it examines a scene.!
We have already discussed that the camera light meter tries to give us the correct exposure based upon averaging every- thing out at middle grey. Most of the time this works out!
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reasonably well, as when the meter sees a variety of objects in the scene, they often average out to middle grey.!
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The problem comes, of course, when there is a predominance of light or dark objects in the scene that fool the light meter into thinking that those things are more important than the other things in the scene. In that situation, the meter suggests an exposure that might not be in keeping with what you want in your final image.!
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So if the camera light meter is looking for 18% to calculate a correct exposure, why not give it 18% grey and make the job easier; this is where we use the grey card.!
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Place the grey card in the same light as the subject, fill the entire frame with the grey card (this prevents anything else from influencing the reading) and take a note of the shutter speed. Use the suggested shutter speed along with your chosen aperture setting and take the photograph. The captured image should now represent a technically correct exposure.!
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! ! Using this method, I again photographed the electrical plug top and the result is shown below. By filling the frame with the grey card, the camera meter told me that a shutter speed of 1/2 second was required.!
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When the meter gets fooled into making an incorrect exposure suggestion, we, as photographers (who are smarter than light meters) need to fool it back by making sure that the light meter has a limited amount of information to work with so it can give us better answers.!
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If we don’t show the light meter all of the information in the scene, that’s why we fill the frame with the grey card, we can avoid showing it the reflectance values of things that are so bright (or so dark) that they throw off the meter’s ability to give us good information. “We just have to do some thinking”.!
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What have we learnt about the camera light meter?
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When a light meter looks at just one reflectance value (an object that reflects light) in a scene, it will give an exposure (aperture/shutter combination) that will make that value into middle grey. It doesn’t matter what that object is; it could be a black cat, a white shirt, a red car or a yellow flower.!
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If the meter sees only that single object and has no idea about surrounding objects, it will suggest an exposure that will reproduce that object as a middle grey. This “middle grey” can be an actual grey in a grey scale image or a middle value (lightness-to-darkness) of any colour.!
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This is one of the basic concepts of the Zone System; using the meter to read the reflectance of a single object in a given scene rather having the meter examine all the tones within that scene.!
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! Tips.! ! • Use the camera Spot meter to get a more accurate reading of an object! • Measure both the dark and light areas to find the full brightness range! • Using a grey card will give the light meter what it’s looking for (18% reflectance)!
! Remember.! !
The light meter will give is designed to give you an exposure reading as if that object is middle grey (Zone V), this does not necessarily mean it is the correct exposure that you had in mind.!
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We are smarter than the light meter so don’t be afraid to over ride what it’s telling you.!
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Now that we have familiarised ourself with some basic photography information, let’s take that and use it to help us understand the Zone System.
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! Zone System - The Basics
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Most Photographers like to think as themselves as creators of art and would rather spend their time being creative and not getting bogged down with all the technical aspects of photography. Unfortunately like most things in life this not as clear cut as one would hope for.!
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The modern cameras today with their in-built computers are wonderful and the majority of time get most things right with only little intervention from the user. Having said that, photography does still contain a mix of both science and art and therefore we do require to know about both as frustrating as this may be.!
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Ansel Adams and his colleagues wanted to create a method which would enable photographers not to get to involved with all the technical issues but allow them to get on with making photographs, so they decided to come up with a solution.! What Ansel Adams did was to divide up the tone scale of a photograph into eleven separate areas which he referred to as Zones. The word Zone was used because it allowed him a to talk about an area of similar, adjacent tones, not a particular tone.!
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Ansel and his colleagues also decided to name the Zones with Roman numerals, as they figured that photographers had enough Arabic numerals (Ć’/8, 1/2 second, etc.) to worry about. To make things a little easier, they created text based descriptions about each Zone so that everyone would understand not only where each area of tone stood in relation to the others, but also what each one looked like.!
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One of the most significant thing about the Zone System is that it has the same relationship as the shutter speeds and aperture do 1:2, thus moving one shutter speed or aperture in one direction or another (either increases or decreases the overall exposure) whilst at the same time moves each tone in the picture up or down one by one Zone.!
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Zone Scale 
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! Zone Descriptions
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! Creating The Mix
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Remember earlier on we talked about light meters, wanting to make objects middle grey. We also spoke about simplifying the light meter’s job even further by using the spot meter mode and forcing it to look at only one object so that it can tell us more about something we find important in our scene.!
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Looking at the Zone Scale, we have now established that “middle grey” or “Zone V” can be used to describe what a light meter is looking for. If we meter a single object in our scene and do exactly what the meter tells us to do, then well get a great
picture of that object as a middle grey object.!
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This is fine if our object is a middle grey colour but what happens if our object in reality is not middle grey, or better still what if during our “visualisation” we don’t want that object to be seen as middle grey in our print.!
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Remembering the fact that all the zones have the same 1:2 relationship just like the shutter and aperture does,; meaning that each zone is exactly twice as dark or twice as light as the adjacent one.!
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In reality what this means is that, If we increase the exposure by one full stop (either by using the aperture or shutter) over what the light meter suggested, we will then force the object into Zone VI.!
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The same would also apply if we decreased the exposure by one full stop (either by using the aperture or shutter) under what the light meter suggested, we will then force the object into Zone IV.!
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One step even further! Let’s say that we metered a dark object in the scene and through our “visualisation” we decided that we wanted to place it in Zone III. Remembering that our light meter will see this as middle grey (Zone V), we could reduce the exposure by 2 full stops which would then force that object into Zone III.!
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The reverse could also be used, let’s say for arguments sake that we metered a light object and again through our “visualisation” we decided that we wanted it to be in Zone VII. !
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Remembering that our light meter will see this as middle grey (Zone V), we could then increase the exposure by 2 full stops which would then force that object into Zone VII.!
! If you have managed to get this far then you’re doing OK.! !
Let’s take a breather and look at a real life example on the next page.
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! Placing Tones
In the image above, I knew in my mind that the gate was to be the main focal point of the photograph. I also established that I wanted to place it in Zone VII on the zone scale.!
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Placing the camera into “Spot Metering Mode” and pointing it at the gate, the camera gave me a reading of 1/80th @ f /5.6. We know at this reading, it will be rendered as middle grey (Zone V), why?, Because that is what the light meter is designed to do.
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! ! So how well did it do? ! In Photoshop I placed a sample point roughly where I had pointed the spot meter on the gate. The black dot on the curve adjustment !
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indicates where I placed the sample point, The input value (128) is the RGB value of the selected tone which actually represents “middle grey” (Zone V) (not bad)! The histogram also shows that this sample point roughly represents “middle grey” or (Zone V)!
! But... I want the gate to fall into Zone VII, So how did I achieve this.! ! Lets take a look on the next page.!
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! In order to place the gate into Zone VII, I simply lowered the shutter speed from 1/80th second to 1/90th second which happens to be 2 f /stops brighter that what the camera meter registered, this then moved the tone of the gate from Zone V into Zone VII.!
What The Camera Metered (Zone V)!!
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What I Visualised (Zone VII)!

 What we are actually doing here is placing tones. We find an important tone within the scene and then place it into a particular Zone where we would like it appear in the final image.! !
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! But wait a minute I hear you say ...! It’s ok placing these so called important tones onto a particular Zone, but how do we know what the other tones at the other end of the scale will look like.!
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This again is where we can make use of our light meter in spot mode.! If the meter sees everything as a middle grey, we can use it to measure both light objects as well as dark objects in our image and determine how many stops apart they are.!
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Case Scenario 1! let’s assume that between the dark object and the light object in our scene there is a difference of 4 “stops” and we have decided to place the dark object on Zone III.! We simply add 4 stops (Zones) to Zone III which will then tell us that the light object will end up on Zone VII.!
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Case Scenario 2! Let’s assume that we want to place the light object on Zone VIII. We know there is a 4 stop difference between the darkest and lightest object, so we do the maths (Zone VIII - 4 stops difference) = 4. This would then place the darkest object onto Zone IV.!
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Now you’re probably asking yourself, this is all fine, but “how do you know what Zones to place certain objects in the first place”.!
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Good question and here is the answer: It’s entirely up to you; there are no “right” or “wrong” Zones. The Zone System is there to give you the flexibility to choose where you “the photographer” would like the tones to be within your image.!
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That about wraps up the idea behind the Zone System. Once you have managed to wrap your head around the concept, it isn’t really that complicated.!
! Reminder.! !
Once you have metered the important object within your scene, you are placing that in Zone V (middle grey).!
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All you need to do from here is work out where on the Zone scale you want to place that object. You can do this either by increasing or decreasing exposure, either by adjusting the shutter or aperture values.
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! Camera Histogram The camera histogram is a brightness histogram which shows the brightness dynamic range of the captured image (i.e., the range from the darkest to the lightest tones in the image that maintain accurate detail).!
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One thing worth mentioning at this point is that the camera histogram is actually showing a representation of the jpeg version of the captured image even if it was captured in RAW format.!
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Unfortunately, this could lead to a problem with the
 camera brightness histogram. First, the camera bright-
 ness histogram shows the dynamic range of an image
 that utilises the settings that were active in the camera at the time that the image was taken.!
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This is fine for those that shoot JPEG images. However, those that shoot raw may use different settings. Thus, the camera brightness histogram is not necessarily an accurate indicator of exposure for those that shoot raw.!
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As mentioned above, the camera brightness histogram shows the dynamic range that results from the settings that were active in the camera at the time an image was taken, which could be brightness, contrast or any other settings that your camera has.!
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The settings for an image that is converted from a raw file are established during the conversion process in the raw converter. This is one of the big advantages of Raw. Usually, the settings used in the raw converter are different than the settings that were in the camera when the image was taken -- this generally results in a different dynamic range than that shown in the camera brightness histogram.!
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! So, what should we as photographers that shoots in Raw do?! The easiest way is for the photographer to get familiar with the difference between the dynamic range shown in the camera histogram and the dynamic range of the converted file.!
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This can be done by taking several images and comparing the camera histogram, to the histogram (in the image editing program) after it has been converted in the raw converter. You may learn that when shooting Raw you could have as much as 1 extra stop after the Raw conversion.!
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Another option for you to try is to set the camera settings such that they produce the largest dynamic range possible (e.g., set the contrast setting as low as possible). This will reduce the difference between the dynamic range shown in the camera brightness histogram and the dynamic range of the converted file. Again, some test- ing will be required to compare the camera brightness histogram to the histogram of the converted file.!
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Tip:! When shooting digital, always expose for the highlights, also referred to as “expose to the right” (ETR)
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Tone Guide
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To help you get used to what certain tones and textures look like, an exercise you can try is to make a Tone Guide.!
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1. Tone Guide Instructions. 2. 3.
! Get a flat textured object, a towel is good for this ! Place your camera into Spot metering Mode, ISO 200 @ f / 8 !
4. Place your camera into Manual Exposure, Meter the towel and take a reading (write it down) 5. 6.
! Take a photograph at the Metered Reading (Zone V) ! Take 5 more photos, each time Decreasing the shutter speed by 1 Full Stop !
7. Adjust the shutter speed to the setting you had when you wrote it down. (you did write it down?)
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8. Take 5 more photographs, each time Increasing the shutter speed by 1 Full Stop!
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Bring all eleven photographs into Photoshop or your preferred image editing software, completely reduce the saturation on each image to remove any colour cast. Crop each image to a smaller size something like 3x4 and then print them.! You will end up with a sort of “texture and tone” guide where you can look at those values and compare them against what you want to have in the field.!
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! The Digital Curve The sensors in digital cameras have what is called a linear response to exposure (light). As you can see by the graph, it takes a bit of light at the lower end of the scale to get it started but after that they respond in a straight! line all the way up the scale.!
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One downside with digital images is that at the high end of the scale (highlights), there is a point where the response ends very quickly. Any information beyond this point is lost forever. Photographers refer to this as “Blown Highlights”!
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Most of the Pro DSLR cameras today are capable of capturing information with detail from about Zone I all the way through to Zone VII.!
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Even though we are working with digital files, we can still use the Zone System to place certain tones within an image but we need to work more towards the upper end (highlights) when considering our exposure to make sure they don’t fall off the end of the scale which would result in “blown highlights”!
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So what does this mean to me as a photographer?! In short, as a photographer using digital, when calculating exposure you ensure that you try to expose for the highlights without clipping any important information.!
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This is why it is important when placing tones on the Zone Scale, you are aware of where the tones at either end of the scale will be placed.!
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Remember we talked about using the light meter to workout the total range of tones. Let’s assume that between the dark object and the light object in our scene we have a difference of 4 “stops” and we have decided to place the dark object on Zone III.!
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We simply add 4 stops (Zones) to Zone III which will then tell us that the light object will end up on Zone VII.!
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! RAW Rules
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One of the most popular questions that are asked in the photography community is whether I should shoot in Raw or Jpeg format. Thankfully nearly all the answers given are advising people to use the RAW format and here is the reason why.!
! Limitations of Jpeg.! !
When we use JPEG format, the file captures 8 bits of data per pixel, which gives us a total of 256 different levels of brightness per pixel for each of the Red, Green and Blue channel. Half of those 256 levels (128) then go towards recording the brightest
spot, then half of what’s left after that (64 levels) goes towards recording the next brightest stop and so on for the rest of the stops.! You will notice that we are halving the information all they way down the scale (linear). As we approach the lower end, usually where the dark areas are that contain detail, we only have small amount of information left to record the detail and textures which really isn’t much at all.!
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Benefits of Raw! With Raw files, you get a lot more information right from the start. Most reasonable DSLR cameras allow you to capture 12 bits of Data or even higher on the Pro cameras.!
! Take a look at the chart below and compare it with one from the Jpeg file above.! !
Here we can see that even in the dark areas, we have a lot more levels of information available to us to extract detail and textures out of the lower Zones. We can also see at the other end of the scale, there are also a lot more levels of
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brightness available to us so again, it will allow us to extract more information out of the highlights.!
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Moving Tones in Photoshop Do we really need to understand this Zone system if we are only using Digital cameras?!
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There is no arbitrary rule in photography that says that you must learn and use the zone system before you can take good photographs. Let’s face it, the modern cameras today are very good in what they can do and straight out of the box, you will be able to get some nice results. I use the word “nice” loosely because as serious photographers, we are usually aiming for something which is higher than “nice”.!
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But Can’t I simply move these tones about in Photoshop?! While you can change values in Photoshop (or other imaging software) after the exposure is made, the effect isn’t really the same as getting the values right in the camera in the first place.!
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The reason has to do with how data works in a digital camera file. Half of all available Levels describe the brightest stop recorded in your image. Then, half of what’s left go to describing the next darker Stop. Half of what’s then left goes to describing the next darker stop. Etc, etc, etc…!
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! Remember Bit Depth.!
So, if our file has 256 available Levels, 128 of them go to describing the brightest stop, then 64 go to describing the next darker stop, then 32 to the next darker stop, then 16 to the next darker stop then 8 Levels go to describing the next darker stop then 4 Levels to the next and then 2 to the next and then 1 to the next. (See above image)!
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So... that means that the darker values have less data describing them which means that we can’t really “move” those values easily without creating noise, posterization and banding in the dark areas. Which THEN means that if we have a file that’s underexposed, our chances of having 128 values of data at the start are a lot slim- mer meaning we are more likely to start our scale with something less, which could lead to us winding up with even worse data at the low end.!
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Overexposure, is, of course dead from the start as we can’t recover values if they are blown out at the high end.!
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So... yes... we can change values in Photoshop, but ”we have to start with good clean data” in order to create effective changes that look good, otherwise, we end up glued to the computer trying to stretch and squeeze pixels from a digital file, trying to match the picture we had in our mind’s eye at the point of capture.!
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Final Thoughts
! This just about brings us to the end of my “In The Zone” e-Book.! ! I hope you have enjoyed reading the book, and if you have at least managed to learn one new thing then that has to be good.!
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My goal was to produce something that explained that even in the digital world, the Zone System can and in most cases should be used along with your visualisation, if you want to spend less time in front of the computer and more time out in the field, feeding your creative juices.!
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Personally, I believe that this approach goes along to way to making us a better photographer, because it makes us think about certain things before we press that shutter.!
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What am I taking a photograph of ?! Why am I interested in this subject ?! What story or mood am I trying to convey to the viewer ?! What do I want the photograph to look like when it is completed?!
Remember that the technology of photography is there and to some degree cannot be avoided, but saying that I personally believe that it is a lot easier to learn than learning, creative vision.!
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On a final note:! Don’t be put off by the technical side of photography, including the Zone System. Simply learn it’s concept and then place that information in your back pocket and concentrate on “Making Photographs”!
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Ian Barber
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