Histogram Display - Blackmagicdesign SmartView 4K Installation And Operation Manual

Histogram Display

Histogram display is most familiar to graphic designers and camera operators. Histogram
display shows the distribution of white to black information and lets you monitor how close the
detail is to being clipped off in the whites or blacks of the video. Histogram display also lets you
see the effects of gamma changes in the video.
Black video is shown on the left of the display, and whites are shown on the right. All video
should usually be found between the 0% and 100% intervals of the histogram display. Your
video is being clipped if it moves below 0% or above 100%. Video clipping can be really bad
when you're on a shoot, as detail in the blacks and whites must be preserved if you
subsequently want to perform color-correction in a controlled environment. When shooting,
keep the video above the black clip, and below the white clip, so you can have more freedom
later to adjust colors without whites and blacks appearing flat and lacking in detail.
When color-correcting, you might decide to clip your video, and in which case histogram display
will show the effect of clipping the video, and how much it is being clipped. You can even use
gamma to create a similar look, with less clipping, while retaining more detail.
You cannot really use histogram display to check for illegal levels although you can use it to see
illegal blacks and whites. Histogram display does not show colors and so the histogram might
appear to show legal levels, even though your video may contain illegal colors. Again, RGB
parade display provides the best way to watch out for illegal levels as it shows them in both the
color and luminance elements of the video signal.
The histogram display setting showing distribution
of whites to blacks
Select histogram from the 'display' drop down menu in
Blackmagic SmartView setup
Using SmartScope Duo 4K 19