Someone with a properly calibrated monitor (or one that seems that way), please comment and let me know how the colors, contrast, brightness, etc, in this image are. I've got 2 PCs, on one it looks like I intended, on the other, it looks like crap, even after swapping for another used monitor. I need to know if I need to buy a calibration kit, or a new monitor. All input appreciated. My concern is that I'm putting up stuff here and on my photoblog that's too dark to see, or at least way darker than I intended it to be.
I can not comment on the technical part of monitor calibration etc. However, I can cetainly say that this is a wonderful picture. The water texture is great. The darkness of this suits very well to emphasize the water and to set the quiet mood. Mary
Judging from your description I would say that we are definitely not looking at the same image. I pasted it into my image editor to play with the brightness and contrast, and I see now the image that you are describing, which is much brighter than what I see in my monitor looking at your original. I'd say I need to re-calibrate my monitor (OTOH - I like it a little bit darker, too...)
If you have photoshop, Look in you control panel and run Adobe Gamma. It will help you adjust your monitor...
In this shot I see full black on the right edge and just to the right of top center. Is see full white at the edge of the falls and some other spots where the water is dense.
You may also wnat to desatureat the image and see how it looks on your monitors, perhaps you have a color issue with a monitor.
You may also want to download som calibrated patterns that will help you see if you monitor is performing properly..
Hey Joe, thank you, too. I guess the thing that concerns me is that with the 100% settings on brightness and contrast on this monitor to even get remotely close to the other PC's monitor (which also has semi-high contrast/brightness settings), everything else seems washed out and thin (text, UI components, etc). I'll get a print with no auto-color correction tomorrow to compare, but I suspect I'll be buying a monitor in the near future. Maybe two : /
Jon, thanks for your help, and your comment. And, good point... I probably ought to describe how I intended it to look. The lower left shadow should be dark, but with visible rock detail. The shadow in the lower right should be almost as dark, with more visible detail, and the shadow area above the falls should be even less dark, with tree details visible, but not overbearing or too obvious. The streams of water should be thin and somewhat contrasty against the rock with a light hint of mist visible to the sides, becoming more obvious moving down to where the water is splashing on the rock below. On this monitor, with contrast and brightness both at 100%, I get almost black shadow areas, with the highlights in the water strands almost completely blown out.
Frankly, I don't know if you'd want to lose the dark contrast. Maybe slightly brighter, but I'd hate to lose that, too. That sort of gold tone on the rocks is interesting. You may have your gamma too high. 2.4, 2.5. I don't know. It might be enough for you to just get barely recognizable differences in the standard row of grayscale squares, which you see various places. You could just eyeball it against the lab prints you get from the same photos, or attempt to shoot those and make corrections, etc. I don't know that trying to satisfy viewers who have too-bright monitors, too high a gamma, would work. Maybe offer a 'bright-view' as an option. I don't know. Seems like more work.
Hmm... I can't say how it is supposed to look, but it shows up a really outstanding image on my pretty, new (damned expensive, I mean to say) LCD monitor. The blacks are nicely black with detail in all the shadows (not very much in the lower left edge or in the deep shadow along the top of the waterfall, on the right, but still a bit). The detail is crisp, the sense of movement lovely. This is a very nice shot and could certainly live on a wall somewhere.
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{K:71879} 6/28/2005
