screen calibration issues

Hi Guys I am having an issue with screen calibration, I have been editing my photos at home on my laptop but when reviewing them at work they seem extremely dark. I am just trying to find a happy medium really so I have posted one which I think looks correct on my home screen and one that looks correct on my work screen and if you guys could give me some sort of indication which looks better on your screens hopefully being a land slide I will know web wise which works best =D

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Replies to This Discussion

Permalink Reply by Trevor Salzwedel on April 3, 2012 at 6:36am

Well a laptop is always a tricky medium to use for editing as the screen is tilting and you never know where to position it when you edit. Also, you move around slowly on your chair and the colors are seen differently due to your positioning. If you don't have a desktop at home, try by positioning a small mirror in the top corner of the screen, if you can see you own eye, the position of the screen is perfect. Once you have done this, calibrate your screen settings accordingly and this should help. I always prefer pictures with a lot of bright colors. The brighter the better. Hope this helps.

Permalink Reply by Ron on April 3, 2012 at 9:48am

The top one is darker and my preference would be the bottom one and I'm using a calibrated 21" monitor. The problem is not knowing what the intention was (dark and moody vs more normal exposure) I'm assuming more normal. Laptops are not know for as good platforms for editing and Trevor stated some issues.

One way to check is to use a professional test photo from the internet which has been adjusted on a calibrated monitor. Set the laptop next to the work monitor and adjust contrast and brightness so the laptop and monitor look nearly the same. Here are some test images you can download http://www.northlight-images.co.uk/downloadable_1/DL_page.html.

You can buy monitor calibrators such as Spyder 4 Pro http://spyder.datacolor.com/index_us.php as the best solution. Colormunki (x-rite) and Huey also make them.

Permalink Reply by Mike Lamb on April 5, 2012 at 4:57pm

#1 is too dark.

Do you have an older monitor at work? If they are different types of screens there will be different quality.

Try tipping your laptop screen upward at home so you are not staring at it dead on perpendicular. The image will become darker and may be closer to what you see at work.

When you get photos developed, do they also look darker than what you expected?

Permalink Reply by CameraClicker on April 11, 2012 at 6:13pm

One of the joys of displaying your photos on the Internet is the number of monitors which are poorly adjusted and the myriad ways they can be out of adjustment.

One of your images has no colour profile tag, the other is tagged RGB. For display on the Internet they should be tagged sRGB. The tagging should be either sRGB or RGB for printing at most stores, ask which the store is expecting.

Permalink Reply by CameraClicker on April 14, 2012 at 2:19pm

Because most computer monitors/video cards are set up for the sRGB colour space, not the RGB colour space.

While your printing equipment uses CMYK, most of the kiosks at the local camera shop, Wallmart, Costco, etc. are all set up to use either sRGB or RGB, the people running the shop should be able to tell you which will work best. CMYK is used for commercial printing and may be supported by high end photo labs, if so they will tell you what format they want the file to have.

This is what the manual for the 5D Mk III says, it is one of the latest manuals Canon has published.

The manual for your 60D will say almost the same thing.

Permalink Reply by Gustavo Amorim on April 21, 2012 at 3:44pm

Hi, Kerri

I had the same problem. the solution for me (I don't have another computer to compare) was printing and putting the screen in the position more able to depict the print, and it was in the end of its possibilities. Bye, take care.

Permalink Reply by Gary Vernon on April 22, 2012 at 3:21am

Hi Kerri,

'RGB' is simply red, green and blue and is a general description of the range covered by most output devices.

SRGB, Adobe 98, Profoto etc are ICC color profiles

SRGB is suitable for web viewing because of the nature of most browsers and it represents the smallest color gamut, ARGB and Profoto are used for printing in a 16bit workflow.

I would have thought if you have access to a Mac tower with third party graphic screens at work you can add an Argb or srgb calibration and then switch between when viewing your own images.

Either way trying to match up a Laptop screen with a dedicated graphics monitor will be tricky as they are not manufactured for critical editing..

Permalink Reply by arash on April 22, 2012 at 8:48am