Chapter 26 — Self-Check Quiz
Twenty-five questions to test whether you can read a file, read a histogram, and develop deliberately. Mix of multiple choice, true/false (with justification), short answer, and a few "what's wrong with this develop?" seeing questions. Answer before scrolling to the key. If you miss one, the key tells you which section to revisit.
Multiple choice
Q1. A RAW file looks flatter and duller than the JPEG preview on the camera back. The best explanation is: - (a) The RAW is a lower-quality file that lost information. - (b) The RAW is the unprocessed sensor data — no contrast curve, saturation, or sharpening applied yet — so it holds more latitude and just hasn't been "performed." - (c) The camera made an error writing the RAW. - (d) RAW files are always meant to look bad.
Q2. Which file holds more editing latitude, and why? - (a) JPEG, because it's already finished. - (b) RAW, because it's higher bit depth (12–14 bits vs. 8) with no baked white balance, contrast, or sharpening. - (c) They're identical once on screen. - (d) JPEG, because it's smaller.
Q3. On a histogram, a tall vertical spike jammed hard against the right wall means: - (a) The shadows are clipped. - (b) The image is underexposed. - (c) The highlights are clipped — pure white with no recoverable detail. - (d) The white balance is wrong.
Q4. "Recovery" (highlight or shadow) works by: - (a) Inventing detail that was never recorded. - (b) Redistributing tones that still hold different values, so it rescues a nearly-clipped RAW but does nothing for a fully-clipped one. - (c) Increasing the ISO after the fact. - (d) Converting the JPEG to RAW.
Q5. In the global develop order taught in this chapter, white balance comes: - (a) Last, after sharpening. - (b) First (after the lens profile), because color is the foundation every other adjustment is judged against. - (c) It doesn't matter where. - (d) Only if the image is too warm.
Q6. The advantage of a gentle S-curve on the tone curve over a single contrast slider is: - (a) It's faster. - (b) It adds contrast in the midtones while protecting the extremes, instead of uniformly crushing shadows and clipping highlights. - (c) It changes the white balance too. - (d) There is no difference.
Q7. "Non-destructive editing" means: - (a) Your edits can't be undone. - (b) Your edits are stored as a recipe of instructions applied to the original on the fly; the original file is never altered. - (c) You must save over the original each time. - (d) The software deletes the RAW after editing.
Q8. The catalog (or library) in a non-destructive workflow primarily stores: - (a) Copies of all your photos. - (b) Pointers to where each original lives on disk, plus the edit recipes and organizational metadata. - (c) Only finished JPEGs. - (d) Nothing — it's just a viewer.
Q9. In the finishing layer, the correct order is: - (a) Sharpening, then noise reduction, then lens corrections. - (b) Lens corrections, then noise reduction, then sharpening. - (c) Noise reduction, then sharpening, then lens corrections. - (d) Order doesn't matter.
Q10. Sharpening goes last mainly because: - (a) It's the least important step. - (b) It amplifies noise (so noise reduction must come first) and its ideal amount depends on the final output size. - (c) It changes the white balance. - (d) It can only run on JPEGs.
Q11. "Expose to the right" means: - (a) Always overexpose by two stops. - (b) Make the exposure as bright as possible without clipping important highlights, to capture the cleanest data, then pull it back in develop. - (c) Move your subject to the right of the frame. - (d) Set white balance warmer.
Q12. You move a photo folder to a new disk location using your computer's file browser, and your develop software now shows a "missing file" warning. The cause is: - (a) The RAW was corrupted. - (b) The catalog points to files by location; moving them outside the software broke the link. - (c) The edits were destructive. - (d) The histogram is wrong.
Q13. Compared to a JPEG, a RAW's higher bit depth helps most in: - (a) The brightest highlight. - (b) The lifted shadows, where the extra levels keep brightened tones smooth instead of banded. - (c) The exact midtone only. - (d) Nowhere measurable.
True / False — with justification
For each, mark T or F and write one sentence defending your answer.
Q14. A fully clipped (blown-white) highlight can be fully recovered from a RAW if you shot at high enough quality.
Q15. Changing white balance on a RAW file costs image quality, so you should get it right in-camera and never touch it later.
Q16. The histogram on the back of your camera is a more reliable guide to exposure than how bright the image looks on the rear screen.
Q17. Exporting a finished image alters your original RAW file.
Q18. Noise reduction and detail are in tension — pushing noise reduction too far erases real texture.
Q19. A "good" exposure is one whose histogram is centered with a peak in the middle.
Short answer
Q20. In one or two sentences, explain the analogy "the RAW is the score and the develop is the performance," and name the historical photographer/practice this chapter connects it to.
Q21. List, in order, the four core moves of the global develop pass (the ones that do ~80% of the work), and say in a phrase why that order.
Q22. Why must you back up both the catalog and the original files, rather than just one? What does each hold that the other doesn't?
Q22b. A RAW is described as "12- or 14-bit" and a JPEG as "8-bit." In one or two sentences, explain what "bit depth" buys you in practice, and where in the tonal range the extra depth helps most.
Q22c. Define "expose to the right" in your own words, and name one situation where it would be a bad idea to use it.
What's wrong with this develop? (Seeing questions)
Q23. A developer reports: "I opened the RAW, immediately maxed the sharpening because it looked soft, then lifted the shadows all the way to brighten the dark corners, then set white balance last." Name two things wrong with this sequence and the result you'd predict.
Q24. Read this Described Photograph and name the single biggest develop error and its fix:
"Sky study, blown" [constructed teaching example]
THE FRAME A dramatic cloudscape over a field; the clouds should be the subject.
THE HISTOGRAM A hard spike climbing the right wall; the camera's clipping warning was blinking over the
brightest clouds at capture, and the photographer ignored it.
THE DEVELOP Highlights pulled to the minimum in an attempt to bring the cloud detail back.
THE RESULT The brightest clouds are still flat, featureless white; pulling highlights only greyed them
slightly. No texture returned.
Q25. A portrait develop looks "off": the skin is bright but slightly grey and blotchy with faint noise, the colors look a touch garish, and there are thin bright lines along the jaw and hairline. Diagnose the three likely causes (one per symptom) and the fix for each.
Q26. A developer says: "My catalog is my backup — all my edits and ratings are in it, so I only back up the catalog file, not the big RAW folders." Explain what disaster this invites and what they've misunderstood about the catalog.
Q27. Read this Described Photograph and name the develop error and its fix:
"Red door, plastic and flat" [constructed teaching example]
THE FRAME A weathered red door in raking light; the texture of chipped paint should be the point.
THE DEVELOP Shadows lifted to maximum, luminance noise reduction pushed all the way up to make it "clean."
THE RESULT The door is bright and smooth — but the chipped-paint texture and the wood grain have turned
into a soft, waxy, featureless surface. The image looks oddly artificial.
Answer Key
Q1 — (b). The flatness is the look of unprocessed sensor data with maximum latitude; nothing was lost. (§26.1)
Q2 — (b). RAW = higher bit depth + no baked decisions = more latitude. (§26.1)
Q3 — (c). A spike against the right wall is highlight clipping: pure white, no recoverable detail. (§26.2)
Q4 — (b). Recovery redistributes surviving differences among tones; with no differences left (fully clipped), it can do nothing. (§26.2)
Q5 — (b). White balance is the color foundation; set it first (after the lens profile) so later adjustments are judged on honest color. (§26.3, §26.6)
Q6 — (b). The S-curve adds midtone contrast while protecting the extremes; the blunt contrast slider crushes shadows and clips highlights. (§26.3)
Q7 — (b). Edits are stored as instructions applied on the fly; the original is never altered. (§26.4)
Q8 — (b). The catalog holds pointers to originals, edit recipes, and metadata — not the photos themselves. (§26.4)
Q9 — (b). Correct the glass, clean the grain, crisp the edges: lens corrections → noise reduction → sharpening. (§26.5)
Q10 — (b). Sharpening amplifies noise (so NR first) and depends on output size (known at export). (§26.5)
Q11 — (b). Expose to the right = brightest unclipped exposure for the cleanest data, pulled back in develop. (§26.2)
Q12 — (b). The catalog references files by location; moving them outside the software breaks the link. (§26.4)
Q13 — (b). The extra levels matter most in the lifted shadows, keeping brightened tones smooth. (§26.1, Physics box)
Q14 — False. A fully blown highlight has no recorded detail to recover at any quality; recovery needs surviving tonal differences, and a clipped region has none. (§26.2)
Q15 — False. On a RAW, white balance is just a tag over untouched data, so you can change it later with zero quality penalty; getting it close in-camera is convenient but not required. (§26.1, §26.3)
Q16 — True. The screen's apparent brightness depends on the screen and ambient light; the histogram is an objective readout of the file's actual tones. (§26.2)
Q17 — False. Exporting bakes the recipe onto a new file; the original RAW and the catalog stay untouched. (§26.4)
Q18 — True. Noise reduction smooths by averaging, which past a point erases the fine texture you developed for — judge it at 100% and stop before "plastic." (§26.5)
Q19 — False. A good exposure is one where nothing important is clipped against a wall; many excellent exposures (a bright high-key scene, a dark low-key scene) are deliberately not centered. (§26.2)
Q20. The capture (the negative/score) fixes the possibilities; the develop (the print/performance) decides the actual picture from them — connecting to Ansel Adams and the Zone System, where exposure plus darkroom work placed each tone on the scale from black to white. (§26.3, §26.1; Ch.8)
Q21. White balance → exposure → highlight/shadow recovery → tone curve. Color honest first (everything is judged against it), then overall brightness, then recover the extremes off the walls, then add contrast/pop without clipping. (§26.3, §26.6)
Q22. The originals hold the irreplaceable captured pixels; the catalog holds every edit, rating, and keyword. Lose the originals and the edits point at nothing; lose the catalog and you keep raw captures but lose all your develop work and organization — so both need backing up. (§26.4; Ch.30)
Q22b. Bit depth is the number of distinct brightness levels available per channel; more levels mean brightening or stretching tones stays smooth instead of banding. It helps most in the lifted shadows, because sensors record fewer levels in the dark stops, so the JPEG's 256 levels fall apart there while the RAW's thousands hold together. (§26.1, Physics box)
Q22c. Expose to the right = making the exposure as bright as possible without clipping important highlights, to capture the cleanest data, then pulling it back in develop. It's a bad idea when the subject is moving or the moment is fleeting (no time to chimp the histogram), or when the risk of accidentally clipping a critical highlight outweighs the shadow-noise benefit. (§26.2)
Q23. Two errors: (1) sharpening first sharpens noise into hard speckle and is done before tones/crop are settled; (2) setting white balance last means everything was judged on a wrong color foundation. Also, lifting shadows to the maximum tends to go flat, grey, and noisy. Predicted result: a noisy, brittle, color-off image with muddy shadows. Fix: follow Figure 26.7 — corrections and white balance first, sharpening last. (§26.3, §26.5, §26.6)
Q24. The biggest error happened at capture: the highlights were clipped (the warning was blinking), so the brightest clouds hold no data — pulling highlights down in develop can't recover detail that was never recorded. Fix: re-shoot, reducing exposure until the brightest clouds fall just short of the right wall, then develop the rest up. (§26.2)
Q25. (1) Bright-but-grey, blotchy, noisy skin → shadows were over-lifted (and/or high-ISO noise), flattening and revealing noise; fix: lift shadows less, apply measured noise reduction. (2) Garish colors → saturation pushed too far and/or white balance off; fix: reduce saturation, prefer vibrance, correct WB first. (3) Bright lines along jaw/hairline → over-sharpening halos; fix: reduce sharpening, judge at viewing size. (§26.3, §26.5)
Q26. Disaster: if the catalog is the only thing backed up and the RAW folders are lost (drive failure, deletion), every edit becomes useless because it points at originals that no longer exist — and the catalog holds no image pixels of its own to fall back on. The misunderstanding: the catalog stores pointers and edit recipes, not the photos. The originals and the catalog are both irreplaceable and both must be backed up (3-2-1 rule, Ch.30). (§26.4)
Q27. Error: over-lifted shadows plus maxed luminance noise reduction smeared away the very texture (chipped paint, wood grain) that was the point — the "plastic/waxy" look. Fix: lift shadows only enough to reveal, not flatten; back luminance NR off until the texture returns, judging at 100%. Remember NR and detail are in tension — past a point, "cleaner" means "detail erased." (§26.5)
Topics to review, by question
- RAW vs. JPEG / bit depth / latitude: Q1, Q2, Q13, Q14, Q15, Q22b → revisit §26.1.
- Histogram / clipping / recovery / expose-to-the-right: Q3, Q4, Q11, Q16, Q19, Q22c, Q24 → revisit §26.2.
- Global develop order / white balance / tone curve: Q5, Q6, Q20, Q21, Q23, Q25 → revisit §26.3.
- Non-destructive editing / catalog / export: Q7, Q8, Q12, Q17, Q22, Q26 → revisit §26.4.
- Finishing: corrections, noise, sharpening: Q9, Q10, Q18, Q23, Q25, Q27 → revisit §26.5.
- Repeatable order: Q21, Q23 → revisit §26.6 and Figure 26.7.
If you missed three or more, the highest-return fix is to re-read §26.2 (the histogram) and re-run the develop-by-the-numbers exercise (26.20) with Figure 26.7 open beside you.