Yes, that’s what we can read and what is perpetuated, leading to the notion that burnt highlights can be restored. I wish that camera and software manufacturers introduced raw histograms so that we’d have a chance to see what has actually been recorded in our shots and what has been lost for good.
Somehow, I expect DxO to go beyond what all others do, and they have done it in a few fields. So why not give us a tool that evaluates the very beginning of raw development - a raw histogram?
I agree. It would be nice to have in the toolbox. But I guess there’s not enough interest. I can’t find a public and votable feature request for it here, so only DxO knows how many requests have been submitted for it.
I know that RAWDigger and some other tools can show the RAW histogram. What I do is simply use in-camera histograms to set exposure when I take photos. I know from experience and product reviews how much overexposure I can get away with before I end up with burned highlights. And more often than not I don’t care very much about it. I just try to get the best exposure possible and do what I can with the RAW file - or use exposure bracketing for serious HDR photography.
Some thoughts.
In the conversion from the colorfilter array to a RGB raster image for every pixel of that array the two other colors are calculated by averaging the values of the surrounding pixels of the same color. Averaging means that the resulting values of the RGB channel can never be higher as the highest value of these individual pixels of the CFA. This happens when you open a raw image in the converter.
A gamma correction doesn’t change the maximum values…
A JPG does compress the RGB raster image and changes to 8 bit. A JPG is a disk file. Due to compression and roundings clipping might occur in that JPG. I compared several times the blinkies of a out of camera JPG and the image created by the converter. Never seen big differences. Theoretical a JPG should show less clipping.
The histogram in a converter is the histogram of the RGB raster image that the converter created, not from a JPG.
As said. Just some thoughts.
George