Histogrammer

Drag a box around the area you want to measure, or press Escape to cancel. If you need it exact, type the position and size in instead. You can also measure the whole desktop, though a smaller area is faster and more precise.

Several monitors work properly, including screens above or to the left of your main one. Readings refresh as fast as 33 milliseconds, or as slowly as 2 seconds. If a capture takes longer than that, it skips one rather than falling behind. Keep the window on top and it stays visible over whatever you’re working in.

Dark on the left, bright on the right. The height of each bar shows how much of your selection sits at that brightness. Red marks the average, the dashed line is 18% gray, and the bracket covers the range most of the image falls into.

Underneath, five bands show the percentage landing in blacks, shadows, midtones, highlights and whites. A log scale makes faint detail easier to see without changing any of the numbers. Measure with Rec.709 luma, which matches what you see on screen, or linear sRGB for technical work.

One number from 0 to 100, built from four things: clipping, exposure, contrast, and how the tones are spread out. It comes with a plain verdict, from “excellent technical signal” down to “high technical risk”.

The numbers behind it sit alongside — average and median brightness, contrast span, IRE, how far you are from 18% gray in stops, and how much is clipping at each end. It reads technical quality only. Not composition, story or taste.

Leave Guide Mode on and you get one clear instruction: whatever matters most right now, whether that’s exposure, clipping, contrast or matching a reference.

Turn it off and the same panel opens up into the full picture — all four parts of the score, a short diagnosis, and specific warnings about anything likely to cause trouble later in grading, lighting continuity or shot matching.

Pin a reading you want to match: a hero frame, an approved grade, a plate, a client pick. Everything you measure afterwards is compared against it.

You get a match score out of 100, how far apart the two are in stops, and how their brightness and contrast differ. It also suggests what to do — lift, pull, compress, add contrast, or watch the clipping. Clearing the reference resets the score and leaves your notes alone.

A note is saved with everything around it: the region, the score, the measurements, the reference name and the time. So it still makes sense weeks later.

Saved notes can be reopened and exported as CSV. The current region can go out as a PNG alongside a CSV of the full measurements. Portable copies keep everything in a folder next to the program, so nothing is scattered around your machine.