Compressed Tones

Even if you expose in the camera correctly there's a chance that the scene brightness values will become muted, compressed or lost. You can also lose values due to improper scanning (too dark, too light, or too much contrast) or printing (too much or too little contrast, too light or dark). Usually, the main problem is flattening, or compressing the potential tonal scale, and that can come from too little, or too much contrast.

To use a musical metaphor, if we record a concert on a hand-held tape recorder and play it back hoping to recreate the sound of the full orchestra we’ll be disappointed. The loss of fidelity in our recording and/or playback may flatten the bass notes and mute the treble notes; flutes may become shrill, while the distinction between our bass fiddle and tuba may be lost and come out like a deep blah. That’s what can happen in printing as well, but in visual terms the highlights may all merge into a harsh white, and the shadow, or deep tonal separation, may lump into a dark mass. We may even compress the tonal scale so much that all the tones come out in a gray mass, with little or no distinction between them, and create a kind of veil over the image.

Actually, there is some inevitable loss when we translate a recorded image to a print. Visually, we see the image on the screen backlit and the image on the print via reflected light, which alone accounts for some of the loss. There’s also some loss in the mere recording of the scene, such as when the brightness value range exceeds the recording capabilities of the film or sensor. In addition, all photographic media "sees" somewhat differently than the eye, and may indeed be blind to some tonal separations in the original scene.

But even with some of these built-in hindrances, you can maximize the materials by paying attention to, and learning about the limitations and working through or around them. Once you do, you'll begin to see how the fullest possible tonal scale can be recorded and eventually brought to play in the print.


When a print is made, the flow of light to dark in the recorded image can be enhanced or corrected in many ways. In addition, selective areas within the scene can be made lighter or darker, or be given more or less contrast. Classically this is called "burning" (making selective areas darker, or “bringing down” values) or "dodging" (making certain areas lighter, or “opening them up”.) Once we get an image into the digital darkroom we have a great many ways to control, enhance and even correct the tonal variety and richness.

Photo and text copyright George Schaub 2010. High contrast scene might cause some loss of details seen by the eye, but at times this serves the intent of the image and is eventually how we "see" photographically. Yes, we can use multi-exposure and processing techniques to bring detail into the deepest shadow and brightest highlights in the same image, but that is not always what the image, and your expression of the image, call for.