Monitor/Print Brightness Problem

sRGB is fine and has enough colour gamut for everything found in nature with the possible exception of the red off poppy petals.

The sRGB colour space is all an 8bit monitor can display, to see what your Raw file really look like (and how it will print, as most printers are at least capable of a 12bit colour gamut)you need to get a 16bit monitor and to view your files in Adobe 1998 colour space, 16bit monitors cost about the same as a decent second hand car, a few thousands of pounds. But the difference in the display and the image you see is huge. It's one of the few things that haven't come down in price, 16bit monitors always come factory calibrated. With a 16bit monitor you can see the difference between an sRGB file and a file saved in Adobe 1998 colour space, and it's quite marked.

Adobe 1998 colour space can show all the colours your camera records, the difference is mainly in the reds and blues.

Is this normal - Had the same issue with some prints and found just like people here saying monitor was way too bright as we have it at 77 for general use but to match prints needed to be at around 15. So to me Yes what you are describing seems normal.

have you tried printing your own so you have full control or is that not an option

Thanks.
I haven't printed my own pictures for quite a while and that was with an older printer and monitor than I have now. Most of my home printing is for letters/documents etc. I've now joined a photography club and I need pictures larger than my home printer will do.. However I suppose i could use the home printer to print off small draft prints to mainly check lightness levels.

i was in the same situation and picked up an Epson R1800 A3+ printer for £90 on ebay, it has been great so far, 12 months, just have to print only what i need to due to ink cost.have fitted a waste collection system to it to stop the sponge from saturating and killing it.really satisfying i find from camera to print all on your own

I've decided to get a colorimeter. Choice between Spyder4Express and ColorMonki Smile. Both about £80. Anyone got thoughts or experience with these?

Monitors also change their colour and brightness based on other factors, in addition to the power supply, for example as they get older, as they warm up etc. A monitor (or an LCD TV) does not display its optimal picture quality when it is first turned on, it takes a while to warm up.

Regards
David

Has anyone tried using their camera to measure screen brightness? There is a link below to a website explaining all. Basic steps taken from website are:

1 In your image editing application, open a new, blank document with a white background. Open this document in full-screen mode so that most of the screen is filled with white.

2 Set your camera to manual focus and set the focus to infinity. Do not use a close focus mode because this will change the effective aperture of the lens and your readings will be inaccurate.

3 Set your camera as follows: ISO 400; Aperture Priority; f/5.6

4 Point your camera at the centre of the screen at close range (50cm or less) so that the viewfinder is completely filled with white. Don't worry that the image is completely out of focus - it will not affect the exposure reading. In fact, you should find that moving the camera back and forth between 20cm and 50cm does not affect the exposure reading.

5 Note the exposure reading. This will normally be displayed as a fraction of a second - in other words, 1/60th will be displayed simply as 60. This displayed number will be (approximately) the luminance of your monitor in candelas per square metre (cd/m2)

6 The recommended luminance for photo editing is 120 cd/m2 so you should adjust your monitor brightness to get an exposure reading of between 100 and 125. (1/100th to 1/125th)

Use camera to measure screen brightness

Not yet...
But that's a jolly good tip!
Matt

Just measured the wifes PC and it came out as 1/60. Will try mine later.

Measuring the screen brightness is part of the process of calibration. I use a PANTONE Huey colorimeter with Argyll CMS and DisCalGui (free and works a LOT better than the supplied software).

From memory (its been a while!), the initial screen luminance (brightness) of my DELL monitor was 244 cd/sq.m. By default, they are always set very high, as it is apparently better for marketing - i.e. they can claim the contrast is higher.

Also from memory, the sRGB spec requires a screen brightness of 120 cd/sq.m for image editing. I've just checked a completely white image in PSE8 with my K200D and it suggests an exposure of 1/100 - 1/125 sec at f5.6, ISO400 - so the monitor is still not far out

Andrew

"Had a print made at well known High Street Photo Printers. On comparing it to the image on my monitor I was happy with the colours but the print was quite a bit darker than the monitor image."


If you print was darker then the colours should be deeper & more saturated than on your monitor so how they could match up for you is a mystery to me.

I find many printing establishments automatically "correct" the tones to what the software "thinks" they should be. I found my prints were always lighter in tone than what I saw on my monitor so I conducted an experiment submitting several versions of one file. The versions were normal, then ½ stop under exposed, 1 stop under, 1½ under & 2 stops under. Lo & behold there was little tonal difference in the prints!

Nonetheless, calibrating your monitor is a good place to start if you want good prints.

All this is fascinating but I have the opposite problem! I edit my photos (using PDCU) on my desktop PC whose brightness is set almost to max (using the tool at the bottom of PU's home page). This sometimes requires photos are lightened but if I am not careful getting them right on the VDU makes them slightly overexposed when printed or viewed on other media. Any suggestions?

Besides being a little confused (monitor turned up to max. yet some photos still need brightening!!!) I wonder about the health of your monitor. Try working on another one.

I'm surprised no one has mentioned the rough method(s) of calibration, see for example http://www.imaging-resource.com/ARTS/MONCAL/CALIBRATE.HTM

Most non professional LCDs are generally quite poor. I think on mine I can either distinguish all black levels or all white levels. Setting brightness/contrast somewhere in the middle obliterates both ends of the spectrum. This is on a good brand (I think Samsung?) 24" panel.

Likewise, I think I had trouble with the gammma too - although, a much cheaper monitor in work actually did a very good job.

I first noticed the issue when I uploaded a b/w set to Facebook. Looked great on my monitor yet from work the next day, horribly under exposed.

A very experienced photographer friend gave me this advice: "If you can't afford a colour accurate monitor, your best bet is to ignore your eyes and instead rely on the exposure graphs in your RAW editor". I guess in many ways he's right

In the case of my monitor, I'm unsure what good a £100+ calibration tool would do; the monitor seems incapable of rendering accurately despite all variations of brightness/contrast/colour-temperature/backlight/whatever.


Steve