![]() ![]() The key to any stylistic decision is that it needs to fit your story. As with any stylistic choice, only use it when it fits the mood of your image or video. As with all things that trend, many people love it, but some really really hate it. It’s become popular in the last few years because many photo apps incorporated it into their ‘vintage’ filters. Which is why people often call it cinematic. The look became emblematic of a golden age in cinema and then people started emulating in a digital age. To correctly expose images, they had to make concessions and this was one of them. Cameras at the time did not have the dynamic range of today’s gear. I had to research this bit, but it looks like the milky black look has its roots in old films. It’s as if you added a few drops of milk to a black coffee. This means that any pixels in your image that were black are now a shade of dark grey. This look is achieved by lifting the black point in your image. So adjust to your taste and to what fits your image. Compressing the shadow information into fewer shades. ![]() To crush the blacks we drag the bottom left point to the right. The left side of the graph is the shadows side, the right side is the highlight side. You can see my image histogram is displayed under the curve. Just open up the curve panel in Photoshop, Lightroom or whatever editor you use. It can also make a photo more dramatic, because it recreates some of the properties of a single hard light source. There are other reasons when this look can be beneficial.Ĭrushed blacks can remove clutter from a dark background, making the subject stand out more. And because your brain is designed to focus on high contrast areas (it’s an evolutionary thing to stop you getting attacked by dinosaurs or something).Įither way higher contrast images are easier to process – and so more appealing to our brains. When you crush the blacks, you increase the contrast in your image. That means that technically you’re making the photo worse. When you crush the blacks in a photo you’re removing detail from the image – the shadow detail. In other words, how will it affect people looking at your photos? But before you go and crush the blacks in all your photos, it helps if you understand the psychology behind this look. The crushed black, or sometimes it’s called the clipped black, look is achieved by taking the shadow areas of your image and making them black.īasically you’re ‘crushing’ multiple shades of dark grey into just pure black. ![]() Because there is nothing worse than dropping some industry jargon into a conversation with a client. So, I thought I’d carry out my civic duty and make a quick video to clear things up. The two terms involve changes on the shadow side of your photo’s histogram. I’ve been noticing people misusing the terms crushed blacks and milky blacks a lot recently. Crushed Blacks vs Milky Blacks Lightroom Tutorial Transcript ![]()
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