on.raw.photography

Otherwise it wouldn't have been called Smart

C.OLDENDORF wrote: Thu Sep 04, 2025 1:35 pm The easy answer is don't overexpose, only that that can be hard

Of course, with Color Perfect the rule -expose to the right- does not apply.

Probably, as Christoph does, it's a good idea to underexpose by 1/3 or 2.
In any case, it's always difficult to quantify in certain photographic genres, but also in certain lighting conditions, and underexposure itself, however minimal, can be a problem.
The rule of thumb applies regarding what to get most out of a given photograph.

In any case, with Color Perfect, I've always managed to deal with these types of problems, sometimes a bit empirically and with a bit of effort, but the result has always been very satisfying.

Personally, I'm willing to make any sacrifice, any effort with Color Perfect, to take advantage of its power.
Just look at Alexis's flat Nikon profile, which already appears to be an excellent profile, to understand that CP's color, and all its relative power, are a whole other matter.

robyferrero wrote: Thu Sep 04, 2025 2:07 pm Of course, with Color Perfect the rule -expose to the right- does not apply.

I need to jump right into this, because the statement that “expose to the right does not apply in ColorPerfect’s world” does not quite tackle it. We’ve already discussed proper exposure of color negative repro shots, and in essence, that is exactly what “expose to the right” means.

The key point, however, is this: exposing to the right does not mean exposing beyond the right. The principle is sound — maximize the histogram real estate, maximize the count of differentiated tonal values that the linear nature of the ADC provides. Those are valid and useful principles. Just don’t overdo it. As soon as you push that extra half stop and drive the sensor into overexposure, even on an apparently harmless image, you will have to deal with the consequences later.

Some hacked cameras (CHDK, Magic Lantern) already provide zebras for overexposure, and a few do so out of the box. With those, you can clearly see where overexposure will occur and factor that into your shooting. For existing images, it becomes something that must be dealt with creatively, because the actual numerical foundation is no longer there. At that point, we work with what remains — plus our visual judgment.

robyferrero wrote: Thu Sep 04, 2025 2:07 pm Probably, as Christoph does, it's a good idea to underexpose by 1/3 or 2.

As for underexposing by one-third or two-thirds of a stop: that brings us into the world of metering modes and how your camera is calibrated for 18% gray. That’s quite a journey of its own and probably outside the scope of this thread. But it is certainly worthwhile to investigate what “proper exposure” means for your particular gear in terms of raw data, and how exposure compensation interacts with that.

I understand well and agree with all your points.
I also try to expose by letting in more light and trying to keep highlights under control.
As you say, it's a long discussion, with many topics to cover, including benefits and risks, including digital noise control.
And here we're going outside the context of the thread; it's worth revisiting the topic elsewhere.

robyferrero wrote: Thu Sep 04, 2025 3:04 pm here we're going outside the context of the thread; it's worth revisiting the topic elsewhere

Right, let's not hijack Alexis' thread on SmartClip for all adjacent topics.

Instead I can learn about some of the fancy splitting and merging moderation options this new system and job entail.

This has been incredibly helpful! I learned so many functionalities on this forum for ColorPerfect already that I didnt consider possible.

Digital Sensors lack the ability to gradually rolloff even when completely overexposed, which is something I have to remind myself everytime I leave the Film Camera at home and take the digital instead

I will pay 10x more attention now to histogram, and avoid clipping as much as possible, as we can always bring shadow up in a good raw, but highlight is lost forever!

Thanks again for the contribution! I need to shoot more digital now exclusively to put it through PerfectRaw!