Editing on MacBook Pro

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finalapert

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When I edit on a MacBook Pro I always edit my photos on the highest brightness level on the screen. But I am always concerned that I might be seeing the image differently to what it actually is.
 
You're right. If you were to print or show on another computer the shot will look underexposed in comparison.

You need to calibrate your screen to make sure the picture you see is the same as it would be if it were printed. I recently upgraded to a ColorMunki Display and can recommend it.
 
I'll just second what Adrian said. I take my MacBook Pro with me on travel shoots, but never, ever edit on it. I'll tinker about with images just for fun, but leave any serious edits until I get the images home and can see them on my calibrated desktop monitor.
 
Even if you calibrate the Mac Book's screen... it's still not ideal to do final editing on the move in varying lighting conditions.
 
Depends how serious you want to take it, a mac book will let you have as many calibrations as you want, e.g. full brightness, or one notch down, two notches down etc. (I have 3 or 4 that I use). Ambient light is more problematic, if your always working at the same few locations e.g. home and office you can calibrate for those separately.

I use my MBP to edit and once calibrated the screen holds calibration extremely well, and you can edit most photo's no problem, funnily enough the hardest thing i find to judge like you is brightness, if possible I use my separate calibrated monitor...its a much better. With my mbp I often find myself using the histogram rather than the screen to judge exposure, which is obviously not ideal.
 
I have used two MacBook Pro for editing. The first was a 2009 model. The screen was calibrated, but on this model I found that it was a bit warmer than my desktop iMac. My suspicion was that the display system couldn't quite deliver enough blue channel to get an exact match. It wasn't bad but not really accurate enough. However my retina Macbook Pro is a different kettle of fish. The screen has a much wider gamut and is almost identical to the sRGB gamut. It was very near my calibration aims straight out of the box. Calibration gave me a very good match to the iMac. Screen brightness can be an issue. I would say it's too bright and has to be tamed. calibrated it should be a good option to work on.
 
It's definitely worth buying a calibrating tool such as a 'Spyder', with regards to the brightness, this is only important if you plan on printing your images as they won't come out the same luminance. I was once told to process in a dim room as on modern day laptops it darkens your display too, the adverse is true when processing in a bright room. Finally always check your histogram if your concerned about the luminance of your images.
 
Even calibrated, I find anything I edit on my MBP (2011) comes out too dark when printing.

I need my monitor almost completely dark to match it - I'm guessing there must be a gamma adjustment somewhere that wants tweaking.
 
There's also viewing angle - some Macbooks show very different colours and brightness as you move your head in relation to the screen. I can't edit well on mine because of this.
 
Just read through this as I do all my edits on a mac book pro and I am looking in to starting some printing. Best look in to this a bit more thanks for the heads up.

Am I assuming it will be okay to save the file and check on my friends pc screen???
 
I've just started using a retina macbook pro and really like the screen the colours are spot on compared to my calibrated pc screen but agree about the brightness
I actually like it bright but haven't tried printing files that were edited on the mac yet
 
Grant1990 said:
Just read through this as I do all my edits on a mac book pro and I am looking in to starting some printing. Best look in to this a bit more thanks for the heads up.

Am I assuming it will be okay to save the file and check on my friends pc screen???
Click to expand...

That would be a good plan, especially if their monitor is calibrated.
 
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