Monitor Calibration

hark

hark

Administrator
Staff member
Super Mod
I use a Spyder Pro to calibrate my monitor, but I'm supposed to start with the monitor at its default brightness and contrast. The thing is before I ever began calibrating my display, I changed the settings. So I don't know what the default brightness/contrast should be. And I can't find anything to click on to reset it.

So I'm questioning whether or not this is too bright. On my monitor it looks fine. But this image (as well as others) look a little bright when viewing on my iPhone. And I have the brightness reduced on my phone. I'm guessing my phone looks to be about 1/2 stop brighter than my monitor's display.

My question is does it look a little too bright or not? :confused: If you've noticed any of my images from in the past that are too bright, also please let me know. You might not be able to tell specifically with this one. Thanks for any help!

_DSC7685 low res.jpg
 
Horoscope Fish

Horoscope Fish

Senior Member
hark said:
I use a Spyder Pro to calibrate my monitor, but I'm supposed to start with the monitor at its default brightness and contrast. The thing is before I ever began calibrating my display, I changed the settings. So I don't know what the default brightness/contrast should be. And I can't find anything to click on to reset it.

So I'm questioning whether or not this is too bright. On my monitor it looks fine. But this image (as well as others) look a little bright when viewing on my iPhone. And I have the brightness reduced on my phone. I'm guessing my phone looks to be about 1/2 stop brighter than my monitor's display.

My question is does it look a little too bright or not? :confused: If you've noticed any of my images from in the past that are too bright, also please let me know. You might not be able to tell specifically with this one. Thanks for any help!
Click to expand...
I think the shot is well exposed overall.

That being said, have you thought about "burning" the background (I'd start by targeting the Midtones at about 25%) to make the car stand out a little more? It's just something you might want to try, see if you like it.
 
hark

hark

Administrator
Staff member
Super Mod
Horoscope Fish said:
I think the shot is well exposed overall.

That being said, have you thought about "burning" the background (I'd start by targeting the Midtones at about 25%) to make the car stand out a little more? It's just something you might want to try, see if you like it.
Click to expand...

This is definitely an image I want to re-edit because the leaves appear to be slightly too light compared with the way they looked in person. Thanks for the suggestion. I hadn't thought about burning but might give that a try. :) I was leaning towards curves adjustment with a layer mask. Your way might be faster. ;)
 
E

editorial_use_only

Senior Member
Monitor brightness calibration etc is a legitimate concern. It's something I worry about often. There are three things I'd say to you about it: One is, if other professional work looks correctly exposed and color-normal, then you're probably fine. Check photos published in major news outlets. Do they look okay, or consistently too dark or too light.

Something I have done from time to time is burn a few images to a DVD-RW and look at them on the televisions.

And when I'm at the library, I check my work on my website on a couple of different library computers. That's probably the closest to what most casual viewers will have: a non-calibrated, budget-friendly monitor.

Your photo actually look a touch over to me. And, to me, the tires are a little over. They're too light grey, not black. Even if they're getting direct sun. In LR, if this were my photo, I'd try a small neg adj to whites and/or highlights, and maybe a small positive adj to clarity. If necessary, I'd try a local adj on the tires to make them darker.

Did you use a polarizer?
 
hark

hark

Administrator
Staff member
Super Mod
editorial_use_only said:
Monitor brightness calibration etc is a legitimate concern. It's something I worry about often. There are three things I'd say to you about it: One is, if other professional work looks correctly exposed and color-normal, then you're probably fine. Check photos published in major news outlets. Do they look okay, or consistently too dark or too light.

Something I have done from time to time is burn a few images to a DVD-RW and look at them on the televisions.

And when I'm at the library, I check my work on my website on a couple of different library computers. That's probably the closest to what most casual viewers will have: a non-calibrated, budget-friendly monitor.

Your photo actually look a touch over to me. And, to me, the tires are a little over. They're too light grey, not black. Even if they're getting direct sun. In LR, if this were my photo, I'd try a small neg adj to whites and/or highlights, and maybe a small positive adj to clarity. If necessary, I'd try a local adj on the tires to make them darker.

Did you use a polarizer?
Click to expand...

Good call on the tires. I was going more by the actual color/brightness of the car's body. Yes, I used a CP filter but was dialing it to capture as much color in the trees as possible. I wasn't watching any reflections or effects on the car itself.
 
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