How dark is this image on your screen?

Steve Zissou · 30-07-2007, 2:33 PM

I now feel the need to buy a monitor calibration tool! I recently got back from holiday, where I had a great chance to finally take a ton of photos with my 400D and actually learn about it. However, after doing PP on about 80 of the 1000-odd photos, I put them on my work laptop and noticed that they were a lot brighter, and a few of them were a lot worse off. I've tried adjusting the settings on the work laptop, but for now, I'd like a rough idea of which machine has the better setup.

Before I print some off, I'd like to get the levels right (my wife's photo printer is out of consumables for the foreseeable future so I can't even print off some tests!).

I was also hoping to make a thread about my experiences with the camera and lenses, but I worry that a few of the images may be a little too dark for people to view. The image below has been edited until it looks like roughly what I wanted on my work laptop, so I'll know which machine has the better setup. I really must sort the wife's printer out though...

Once I'm happy with the setup of my monitor, I'll be able to PP the rest of the photos I want to keep and know that they'll be the right levels for printing.

Thanks in advance!

Steve.

h4rri · 30-07-2007, 2:40 PM

Is there an image there? All i see is a black block ...

Nah seriously it looks dark but then it's the scene that is dark, I would suspect you metered on the light showing and that threw the metering off. You should be able to lighten it in PS though.

tontoshorse · 30-07-2007, 2:40 PM

Steve, photobox will send you out a Calibration Print which you use to match the colours on the card to those on their web page. Its pretty accurate and worth trying before getting your prints done.

stevegreen · 30-07-2007, 2:40 PM

To me, that image doesn't look right at all. You have a 'nearly blue' light sky which would suggest daylight but a dark street with the light providing a fair bit of light but not limited to it's own area. It was obviously taken early evening but it just doesn't sit right with me overall.

How much PP have you done on the levels?

Pirate!! · 30-07-2007, 2:46 PM

I see a dark street with an illuminated building facade and whatever is left of blue sky.

Looks clear enough to me for the amount of light available.

Have a look @ Adobe Gamma for monitor calibration.

Steve Zissou · 30-07-2007, 2:53 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by stevegreen

To me, that image doesn't look right at all. You have a 'nearly blue' light sky which would suggest daylight but a dark street with the light providing a fair bit of light but not limited to it's own area. It was obviously taken early evening but it just doesn't sit right with me overall.

How much PP have you done on the levels?

Nothing to the levels, that's pretty much how it came out the camera! I rushed the shot as I had people walking behind me. You can see in the EXIF that it was taken at 17:51 (19:51 local time), so the light was fading fast - sunset was at about 20:15 IIRC. I like the side streets in Chania, and wanted to capture what they looked like at this time of the day.

Steve Zissou · 30-07-2007, 2:53 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Pirate!!

I see am dark street with an illuminated building facade and whatever is left of blue sky.

Looks clear enough to me for the amount of light available.

Have a look @ Adobe Gamma for monitor calibration.

If that comes installed with Photoshop CS2, then I have that on both machines already.

Steve Zissou · 30-07-2007, 2:56 PM

For reference, on my laptop, I see the dog, the moped (very dark, but visible), the balconies right above the open shop etc. I'm guessing no-one else sees this if it's that dark! That means neither of my screens are setup right...

Yandros · 30-07-2007, 3:10 PM

Steve, My office monitor is pretty reasonably well calibrated (though just with web calibration tools for black/white levels), and is a rather nice panel (NEC 20WGX2 with the highly reflective opticlear coating). The dog is quite clear, but below is muzzle is near black. Now you point it out, I can see the moped, and you just see what's obviously the chrome handlebars. The tree on the right has no shadow detail from the balcony level upwards. The doorway to the left of the illuminated one is solid black (well very very dark brown!), apart from a pair of faint lines at about handle height above the scooter.

Hope that helps.

Bursar · 30-07-2007, 3:16 PM

My screen isn't calibrated, but the moped is more or less invisible. If Steve hand't pointed it out, I probably wouldn't have noticed it.

Maybe 5 mins spent here: http://www.epaperpress.com/monitorcal/ would help your screen a little.

Steve Zissou · 30-07-2007, 3:17 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Yandros

Steve, My office monitor is pretty reasonably well calibrated (though just with web calibration tools for black/white levels), and is a rather nice panel (NEC 20WGX2 with the highly reflective opticlear coating). The dog is quite clear, but below is muzzle is near black. Now you point it out, I can see the moped, and you just see what's obviously the chrome handlebars. The tree on the right has no shadow detail from the balcony level upwards. The doorway to the left of the illuminated one is solid black (well very very dark brown!), apart from a pair of faint lines at about handle height above the scooter.

Hope that helps.

It does, thanks. I'm going to have a serious play with my monitor's settings tonight I think. Oh, and it's the back of the moped, so it's the seat handle you can see (if it wasn't so badly exposed!)

To be honest, I think a fair few of my other photos were underexposed due to me using a Circular Polarizer for the first time, and overdoing it a bit in some of the landscape shots I was trying.

Steve Zissou · 30-07-2007, 3:20 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Bursar

Maybe 5 mins spent here: http://www.epaperpress.com/monitorcal/ would help your screen a little.

lol, on the "Stand ten feet from your monitor and examine the above figure." bit, the smooth patch was darker, so I need to play with Adobe gamma a bit.

cedmondson · 30-07-2007, 3:23 PM

I have a Spyder colorimeter / software package and consider it money well spent. However you don't necessarily need one of these just to ensure your images aren't too light or too dark. For basic contrast / brightness settings go to dpreview and find any review page. Here for example is the 400D review and if you scroll down toward the bottom of the page you'll find a greyscale chart. If you can see every segment of the A-Z greyscale blocks then you're probably more or less OK in terms of gamma. If not tinker with brightness till you can just make out the A-C segments then contrast till you can just distinguish X-Z.