Author Topic: Probably not a bug: why is the output histogram so flat?  (Read 3153 times)

Offline Nocturnal

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Hi,

I've wondered about this for a long time but now I have a case that easily illustrates my confusion. When I apply this absurd HT curve to an image and completely blow it out, making most pixels white, why isn't there a big peak on the right of the output histogram? I'm probably not understanding the output histogram so please explain it to me if this is normal behavior, thanks :)

Best,

    Sander
---
Edge HD 1100
QHY-8 for imaging, IMG0H mono for guiding, video cameras for occulations
ASI224, QHY5L-IIc
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Offline Juan Conejero

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Re: Probably not a bug: why is the output histogram so flat?
« Reply #1 on: 2010 September 01 02:11:15 »
No bug here, just normal behavior.

Quote
When I apply this absurd HT curve to an image and completely blow it out, making most pixels white

Not really. An histogram transformation in PixInsight will never clip a single pixel unless you explicitly define a shadows clipping point > 0 or a highlights clipping point < 1. The curve you've applied in this example does not clip at the highlights. Bright pixels are not white on the resulting image (except those that already were white before applying the transformation), although they may seem white due to limited gamut of the screen.

Quote
why isn't there a big peak on the right of the output histogram?

Because you have defined a shadows clipping point > 0, which is setting a 1.0267% of the total pixels to zero. Thus you have a prominent peak at the left side of the histogram, while you don't have any white pixels. The rest of pixel values != 0 are in fact smoothly distributed along the available numeric range. The peak at zero value is (by far) the maximum histogram peak after the transformation.

Histograms are always represented normalized by the HistogramTransformation tool. This means that the vertical dimension of the histogram always corresponds to the maximum histogram peak. You can zoom the histogram vertically if you want to inspect the 'hill' around 0.95 on the horizontal axis, which corresponds to the initial histogram peak.
Juan Conejero
PixInsight Development Team
http://pixinsight.com/

Offline Nocturnal

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Re: Probably not a bug: why is the output histogram so flat?
« Reply #2 on: 2010 September 01 12:31:48 »

Ok, thanks Juan. I'll play with this a little more to make sure I've got a solid handle on this.
Best,

    Sander
---
Edge HD 1100
QHY-8 for imaging, IMG0H mono for guiding, video cameras for occulations
ASI224, QHY5L-IIc
HyperStar3
WO-M110ED+FR-III/TRF-2008
Takahashi EM-400
PIxInsight, DeepSkyStacker, PHD, Nebulosity