Is this too dark ?

I have my home computer screen (Dell lcd) calibrated with a Pantone Huey. I use Elements 4.0 to pp my photos.

When I upload a picture to my Flickr page it looks the same exposure-wise as I see in Elements.

However when I view the Flickr pictures on any of my screens at work the pictures look much darker.

I know this is a very unscientific test but can you please comment on this picture. I did deliberately darken the shadows in the rocks behind the yellow flower, but whereas they looked dark grey on my home computer there is plenty of detail. On my work computer (and others in my office) the area looks almost black with little detail.

Looks good here on my works screen, still detail in the dark areas. My experience tells me that it will look almost the same at home.

Prieni

Looks fine on my screen.

Remember your works machines may not be colour calibrated so will show things incorrectly.

It looks fine here on my uncalibrated screen too. Plenty of etail visible.

It looks pretty dark on my screen, even though it's been calibrated recently!

However, the problem with mine is that it's pretty old, and its max brightness isn't enough to show very dark detail.

Thank you all for the replies. I will try and find one of those graduated grey strips and experiment with that.

When I first got my Huey calibrator it didnt suggest how to set the screen's default brightness/contrast, i dont know if that has something to do with it.

Our screens at work are not colour calibrated, maybe I should call in at all the neighbours in the street and do a poll of how the pictures look !

There is detail but it is quite a dark gray with some parts approaching black. Than again my screen is currently calibrated to a printer so that doesn't help much

On my Lacie - it's a tad dark (but they may have been the intention). There is generally detail in the shadows, however, the histogram shows that the black point is clipped (and running my "Blown-O-Matic" Photoshop action shows there are clumps of shadow that are just sitting too far down.

Ideally your histogram should not show an abrupt ending at either the black (left) or white (right) ends of the graph.

Using the levels tool: you can't lower the white point without blowing out the flower... So it looks like a slight gamma change is needed (0/1.2/255 in the levels dialog). But, based on my comments above I reckon you are better off adjusting the exposure... assuming you shot RAW

Even though a monitor is colour calibrated you will find great variations in the brightness and whether the detail is perceivable (especially in shadows). It's a right pain getting a web image to be acceptable to the widest audience

Matt

Looks fine on my apple laptop monitor.

I think I have got to the bottom of this. On my pantone Huey I had the setting for room light adjustment turned on. if i turn it off, my screen goes darker.

As i was processing my pictures with the "lighter" screen, the images looked darker when viewed on a screen at work or neighbours screen.

I'm glad you got it sorted.

I didn't respond because it wasn't clear to me how dark you thought it should have been. It is a dark pic; but rather a good one.

G

Thanks George

I know it was an impossible question to get an accurate answer to. As someone else pointed out, the dilemma is how to calibrate your screen when you have not a clue how it will look on the majority of viewers screens. As I have just discovered, colour calibration is perhaps the least problematic compared with the brightness setting.

I am dreading getting round to actually printing some pictures ! A whole new set of variables.

Can I just say what a pleasure it is to post on this forum. Knowledgeable and polite responses from everybody...thank you.