Monitor calibration?

[BJett]

I've noticed after post-processing my photos on my laptop they look really good (HP Elitebook, high end laptop specifically purchased for video editing)...then I go to work, or other monitors and they don't look so hot. Is there a good way to keep this consistent? What is bright and shiny at home looks drab elsewhere. Does anyone go to the trouble of buying monitor color calibration software?

 

[IntrepidXJ]

I calibrate my monitor...but mainly for printing purposes. Unfortunately there is not much to make sure your photos will look the same across everyone's monitor besides making sure to save the image as sRGB before posting it online.

 

[DAA]

I've noticed huge differences in how my images appear across different monitors. I don't own a monitor worth hardware calibrating, but have used simple DIY adjustments to calibrate a couple of them as best I can - like Randy said, for printing. What I find, is an image that looks good on one of my "calibrated" monitors and that does indeed produce a nice looking print, those images tend to look garish and over cooked on typical cheap desktop displays. I don't bother doing two versions though. If it's something I intend to print I give it the print ready treatment and if it looks like crap online on someone elses monitor - oh well...

- DAA

 

[BJett]

Thanks! I know its a much bigger issue for print. I'll make sure the JPG's are exporting to sRGB, didn't think to look...I figured that would be the default?

 

[IntrepidXJ]

Thanks! I know its a much bigger issue for print. I'll make sure the JPG's are exporting to sRGB, didn't think to look...I figured that would be the default?

If you 'save for the web' sRGB usually is default....but if you do a normal save it will usually save the file in whatever color space you are working in. At least this is how Photoshop works. I made this mistake when I first started working in PS...

 

[DAA]

I usually use LR and I just have a preset for "1024 long edge" and sRGB, with a watermark (just started that very recently after seeing another of my coyote images get poached...), that's my "save for web" preset.

- DAA

 

[BJett]

I just added a watermark to my latest set as well. Thanks for the tips y'all, just now getting into LR. Slightly overwhelming at first!

 

[Laura]

Also keep in mind that photos will look best on a laptop because they're lit from behind, but when you print they won't be. One of the best tips I got about LR is to set your develop background color to white. The LR default is light gray because that flatters most every shot, but when you post it somewhere else it can look really flat if it's against a different background.

 

[andyjaggy]

You need to know if you are editing on a wide gamut display or not. If you edit your photos on a wide gamut monitor and don't embed them with a color profile (sRGB) tag your images will look very under saturated on a standard LCD.

Alternatively if you edit your images on a standard LCD and don't embed with a color profile then they will look super saturated on a wide gamut display.

Alternatively if you are using internet explorer none of that matters anyway since internet explorer does not read and respect color profiles embedded in images. One of the many reasons to use firefox or chrome these days. Also the base environment in windows does not respect color profile tags, so if you are using a wide gamut monitor you will notice that images on the desktop, or thumbnails in folders are super saturated, even though the image looks correct in picture view or other applications. Mac wins in the that regard since the entire OS is color managed.

As far as brightness goes, 95% of monitors out there have their brightness cranked up about 30% too high, which is why when you print things the prints always seem so much darker, well that and as others have stated prints are reliant on reflected light, and the brightness of the print will change dramatically depending on your room lighting. If you calibrate your monitor with a hardware calibration device you will immediately notice how much darker it sets your monitor. It seems incorrect at first until you do some prints and realize it is much much closer to how the prints look.

If anyone wants a little bit more information I posted a blog post about it a while back, you can read it here. Or PM me if you have any questions, this stuff can be pretty confusing.

http://www.andrewdavidsonanimation.com/2011/11/color-management-part-ii/

 

[andyjaggy]

I've noticed after post-processing my photos on my laptop they look really good (HP Elitebook, high end laptop specifically purchased for video editing)...then I go to work, or other monitors and they don't look so hot. Is there a good way to keep this consistent? What is bright and shiny at home looks drab elsewhere. Does anyone go to the trouble of buying monitor color calibration software?

It really sounds like your laptop screen might be a wide gamut display. If you are editing on a wide gamut screen and aren't using ICC profiles in your operating system and don't convert to sRGB then your images will look drab and under saturated on most other screens. You need to convert the image to sRGB if you have been editing in a different color space before saving out for web.

I actually recommend working in sRGB space at all times, even if your monitor can properly display a wider color gamut. In theory wider color spaces will preserve and show more colors, but in my experience the colors of almost every shot you take will fit nicely into the sRGB color space, and then you don't have to worry so much about your images being out of gamut on other screens or even printers.