Monitor/LCD Brightness. - DPChallenge Forums

Panasonic Lumix G 14mm F2.5 ASPH

05/16/2005 01:14:34 PM · #1

I have a beautiful, vibrant, flat panel LCD that really captures the color of the shots I'm working on. When comparing my posted pics with a CRT, the tone (dark vs light) is right on and the images look very much the same. When viewing the greyscale gif at the bottom of the voting page, I can see the subtle difference between the 100% white vs 95% white and the 100% black, 95% black.

But when printing out the image on my Canon i9900, having the shot processed at my local camera shop or from DPCPrints, the shots all seem much much darker.

I am converting the images to sRGB in Photoshop before saving and using the sRGB color profile when printing.

In order to approximate the brightness level of my shot on any monitor, it seems that I need to drop the brightness on CRT/LCD to the point where 80% black to 100% black are indistiguishable.

Should I really do this? It would seem that I will get a better representation of the final print this way, but does not seem to relfect what others will see in a web-posted shot cuz if they can see the differences in the greyscale gif, it would be very washed out or overly bright.

Can't post any examples from work right now just wondering if my profile shots are overly dark/light or if they appear correct to most viewers and what I should do to my monitor in order to ensure I see what really is going to be printed out.

Thanx.
JD

Olyuzi

Panasonic Lumix DMC-GX7

05/16/2005 01:30:06 PM · #2

Prints are incapable of matching the larger color space of monitors so it may be a good idea to reduce the brightness of your monitor to get a better representation of what the image will look like in print. I think that Photoshop also has a setting that shows you what your photo will look like in print using CMYK colors.

05/16/2005 05:40:40 PM · #3

...but I really hate the idea that in trying to match the printer output (real life) to the monitor output (perceived life) that doing so could cause the viewers to see a very washed out photo on their screens.

Two best examples in my portfolio for this problem are:

and

both appeared on all the monitors I work with as rather vibrant, medium bright images, but when printed, Chocolate had an almost completely black background (where I was seeing a reddish brown with lighter diagonal highlight) and Shrine was very definitely bright enough to see the depth of the room behind it (where the print was flat, dull, dark and almost appeared 3-4 stops underexposed.)

Message edited by author 2005-05-16 17:48:21.

Canon EF 17-40mm f/4.0L USM

05/16/2005 05:46:00 PM · #4

I have already today, adjusted my monitor's brightness/contrast (hardware) and tweaked the Adobe Gamma to 'try' bringing the color/brightness closer to the prints, but cannot really comprehend that the monitor (which before could see all shades of the gif) could be that far maladjusted from the brightness range.

Steveinnz

Canon EOS-60D

05/16/2005 05:55:13 PM · #5

Looked at your images, both seem a little dark. I certainly can not see anythink behind the shrine. I am a computer tech who is constantly seeing monitors cranked up to max brightness. For true color and brightness on a new monitor expect to be about mid way on controls. I know my monitor is an LCD 17" and the color matches printer, scanner perfectly without me having to adjust it much at all.
Maybe you should try reseting the monitor and removing the software adjustment and seeing how it looks.