Red Squ...Moniter Calibration.

fracster

I love BRASH and BRASH loves me
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Ade
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Just calibrated my moniter and it looks a fair bit darker than it was, maybe just me.

How does this look for exposure please chaps and chapesses?

PP.....A bit of contrast,a bit of clarity and sharpened bicubic method when resizing. No saturation,vibrancy,levels,curves ect ect.


Red Squirrel Nov 4 by Fracster, on Flickr
 
thank you kindly gents,appreciated.
 
Mine's a bit more of a complicated answer, which is not unusual

Can we see what you see Ade?, when you change the profile presumably it causes you to adjust your RAW file so that you are happy with the results before you export and post on the Web, but we will only see what you see if our monitor is calibrated to the same settings

One thing you could do is to load the old profile and look at the same image and see the changes and adjustments you need to make in LR or CS6 to get both images to look the same ……… and also which image you prefer

Looking at my screen, at your image, the background is very dark and there are extreme black areas in the green foliage.
The squirrel is fine, albeit maybe showing a little "black" here and there

Presumably you need to post a more balanced image for us to really comment …. am I making sense or just not understanding what happens

But it could be my monitor that needs calibrating ……. always my concern when I post and image …… as they never look quite the same when looked at on two screen side by side …… i.e. Laptop and Desktop
 
Looking at my screen, at your image, the background is very dark and there are extreme black areas in the green foliage.
The squirrel is fine, albeit maybe showing a little "black" here and there
Sounds to me like your monitor needs calibrated. I'm seeing nothing that is "black," and nothing measures as black either.

We will *never* see the same things; but if your monitor is calibrated well it should be "close."
 
Bill what is this profile and export things you speak of?
 
Sounds to me like your monitor needs calibrated. I'm seeing nothing that is "black," and nothing measures as black either.

We will *never* see the same things; but if your monitor is calibrated well it should be "close."

My Spyder Pro no longer works with my OS X

depends how I define black - the bg is very dark, (shades of chestnut - I suppose), but I have a very dark patch on the greenery - LHS just below the squirrel to the left

just used the Mac OS X "simple" software to calibrate and nothing has changed

maybe that's why my images are getting crit!!!
 
Bill what is this profile and export things you speak of?

Hi Ade,

On the Mac - every time I re-calibrated the screen, using either the software in the Mac OS X or Spyder Pro a new "profile" was/is created - it is then easy to click on each and you can see the physical changes you have made on the screen….. and you never use a profile unless you delete it

On the Mac it is System Preferences, Display, Colour and then you see a list of Display Profiles

Cannot remember where it is in Windows as it is that long since I used it

I'm not an expert, maybe someone else can explain

export just means posting the jpeg to the web from your photo software, e.g. LR

Maybe Steven can help as he seems to be knowledgeable with all this kind of technical stuff, amongst other things
 
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My Spyder Pro no longer works with my OS X

depends how I define black - the bg is very dark, (shades of chestnut - I suppose), but I have a very dark patch on the greenery - LHS just below the squirrel to the left

just used the Mac OS X "simple" software to calibrate and nothing has changed

maybe that's why my images are getting crit!!!
I see a dark BG and a dark shadow spot LHS... to me that just looks like an evening pic and that's the lighting. I used the MAC digital color meter application in LAB mode to measure the exposure... As best I can tell it reads the image data and isn't dependent on calibration for it's readout. L measures from 0-100... so a "good exposure" for an "average section" should be in the 50's...
 
I see a dark BG and a dark shadow spot LHS... to me that just looks like an evening pic and that's the lighting.

Steven

cannot really understand the last bit

but the first few words, I agree, that's what I see, but I think Ade's question was , ?an implication that it may be too dark?
 
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this tech speak is way over my heads guys, I take pics and am not good at pp. The shot was taken in a conifer plantation, I was led down in a clearing with the sun, harsh light that day, coming over my right shoulder into the clearing. The surrounding area was dark, conifer plantation dark. I hope that helps clear up the dark areas in the background. The subject seems ok exposure wise to dome of you, so my monitor seems ok now.
 
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The subject is correctly exposed Ade, and as long as all your other shots look OK, then presumably you have no worries

But the results of calibrating a monitor are usually compared against "a test chart"
 
Steve, bill, thanks for your input, I must search and learn about these things.
 
Steve, bill, thanks for your input, I must search and learn about these things.

Lots of test charts on the web Ade

this link is quite extensive and (depressing) as far as my monitor is concerned as I need to adjust the white and the blacks

http://www.lagom.nl/lcd-test/

just re set mine - all my images now look a little brighter than they were
 
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The subject is correctly exposed Ade, and as long as all your other shots look OK, then presumably you have no worries

But the results of calibrating a monitor are usually compared against "a test chart"
Checked against a *printed* test chart...
The whole point of calibration is really "only" to ensure that prints come out as you expect them to.
It's not really meant to ensure images look entirely consistent across multiple monitors/systems... that's just not going to happen. But it helps.

It's one of those things we need to keep in mind. Color, brightness, sharpness, and DOF are all monitor dependent. And all monitors vary to some degree.
 
Checked against a *printed* test chart...
The whole point of calibration is really "only" to ensure that prints come out as you expect them to.
It's not really meant to ensure images look entirely consistent across multiple monitors/systems... that's just not going to happen. But it helps.

It's one of those things we need to keep in mind. Color, brightness, sharpness, and DOF are all monitor dependent. And all monitors vary to some degree.

Thanks Steven

"just re set mine - all my images now look a little brighter than they were" and above image looks brighter

is there any way that you can compare profiles a), straight from the camera RAW, b). the histogram and c). whatever…….. or are they just not comparable in any way

i.e. should a "perfect" histogram look good on a well calibrated monitor and not need any PP adjustments to exposure and colour?

I find that I usually, always have to adjust my Nikon NEF RAW files
 
Lots of test charts on the web Ade

this link is quite extensive and (depressing) as far as my monitor is concerned as I need to adjust the white and the blacks

http://www.lagom.nl/lcd-test/

just re set mine - all my images now look a little brighter than they were

That is a good site to see how well your monitor performs; and to some degree verify your calibration. Don't get to caught up on it though as most monitors will not be able to pass all of the tests 100%. IMO anything above 250 and anything below 5 don't really matter much (*especially* for printing).
 
is there any way that you can compare profiles a), straight from the camera RAW, b). the histogram and c). whatever…….. or are they just not comparable in any way
Not that I'm aware of. A big part of the difficulty comes from the fact that the camera histogram will most likely NOT be the same as the histogram in a processing app. It's a histogram for a compressed jpeg thumbnail... and to make it worse, some cameras "modify" the histogram based on whatever (i.e. show clipping at 245 instead of 255, or worse). Nikon even puts a disclaimer about the histogram display in the manual.

And, as far as I can tell the histogram and color meter measurements are reading the image data and are not influenced by the display conditions... i.e. change your profile and the histogram won't change.
 
Thanks Steven, always good to hear your opinions and words of wisdom

I tend to use the above sites images alongside any calibration I do to see the changes as they occur
I use the attached image as the "identity plate" for LR. Upper scale is black/5% grey and lower scale is gamma. If it starts to go wonky and I loose "blocks" I know I have an issue. FWIW, I never have the first two columns distinguishable vertically... my monitor just isn't up to it I guess.
689754_orig.jpg

You can use any calibration strip you like for your "identity plate." (there are size limits... something like 54px height)
 
I use the attached image as the "identity plate" for LR. Upper scale is black/5% grey and lower scale is gamma. If it starts to go wonky and I loose "blocks" I know I have an issue. FWIW, I never have the first two columns distinguishable vertically... my monitor just isn't up to it I guess.
View attachment 25333

You can use any calibration strip you like for your "identity plate." (there are size limits... something like 54px height)

Thanks Steven

so do you just copy that into LR and keep a check on it now and again

Oh, I see - into LR is good
looking at it in LR - my highlights need a very slight adjustment about -6, but the Blacks need +30 that's out of 30 ………. I'll try it with another "profile" - this gives -2 and +35 ……. so I'll go back and check the blacks … interesting this … you can use the highlights and shadows sliders in LR to check the template

presumably 5% grey is the second box from the left in the bottom line and the top line is supposed to be black/5%/black/5% etc

I need to adjust my "blacks"
 
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In LR click on the Lightroom menu and select "identity plate setup." Then select "use graphical identity plate" and select the image. It will then become part of LR's interface displaying to the left of the module tabs... always visible...
 
In LR click on the Lightroom menu and select "identity plate setup." Then select "use graphical identity plate" and select the image. It will then become part of LR's interface displaying to the left of the module tabs... always visible...

thanks Steven - done, a great tip
 
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