Light Science and Magic, 4th Edition

9

The Extremes

The extremes are the lightest and the darkest groups of grays or colors in the photograph. For years they were the parts of the picture most likely to lack quality because of the inherent, irremediable defects in film. Good photographers managed to get excellent pictures anyway because they paid a lot of attention to these defects and how to minimize them.

The extremes are a potential problem in any photograph, but in a white-on-white or a black-on-black image, pictures composed entirely of the extremes, little defects can turn into ...