- [Narrator] Black point and white point
is where the image runs out of information or details
in the darkest and lightest areas.
Understanding black point and white point
and knowing how to check for it is important
because often it's hard to see this on the screen.
The histogram provides a way
to view clipping warnings for blacks and whites
that can help us evaluate
exactly where we've run out of that information or details.
The clipping warnings are found in the upper left
and right corners of the histogram here.
The black clipping warning is on the left
and the white clipping warning is on the right.
You could click on those to turn them on,
but an easier way is to press the J key,
which turns both of them on together.
So the J key will toggle them on and off.
The blue spots represent complete black
where there's no shadow detail like this.
Knowing where the blacks and the whites are clipped
is especially important if the image will be printed.
If we're going to print this,
we want to make sure that something is black
like we see here.
And if these areas aren't that important, the dark areas,
we could add even darker blacks or more blacks
by taking the blacks slider to the left.
As I take this to the left, more of those areas get crushed.
That's one of the terms we'll use
when we just blow out all the details
and take it to complete black.
Now that might be a little bit too far
so I can back it off a little bit.
Nothing in this image is complete white and that's okay.
There isn't anything in this image
that should be complete white.
We know that there's nothing complete white
because we don't see a clipping warning for the whites,
which is a red color.
And we know that the white clipping warning is turned on.
So to check for the clipping warnings for the whites,
we'll take the whites slider and move it to the right
until we start seeing some red masking
in the highlight area of the sky.
We see it turning red.
That represents absolute white, no detail at all,
which I don't want in this image.
So what I typically do
is I'll move the whites slider
until I see that red clipping,
and then I'll back it back off until that goes away.
I never take the whites down
to a negative number like down in here
because this could add a gray tint over something
that should be white.
So I always go to a positive number
usually till I get the clipping.
And then I back it back down.
Having some whites helps with the contrast in the image too.
I'm going to go ahead and turn off the clipping warning
with the J key
to show you that there's another way to do this
with a keyboard shortcut.
While you're moving a tone slider,
if you hold the option key or the alt key
if you're on a Windows, you'll get a clipping warning.
So we see now that I've clipped
so there's no detail in the white.
So I'll back this down.
And this works exactly the same in the black slider as well.
I always set my white and black point
after making basic panel adjustments.
And again, later in the editing workflow,
if other adjustments have been made,
just remember the whites go to the right
towards a positive number
and the blacks go to the left towards a negative number.