Why do blended exposures look so different when monitor calibration is on or off?

Hi there,

This has been vexing me for a long time, besides other things .

I find that most of my images which are blends of different exposures and which have had luminosity masks applied, look very different between whether my monitor calibration is on or off. When the calibration is on, the colors are considerably more saturated and there is more contrast. I have looked at many other landscape pictures on NPN, and I find that the vast majority of them do not have that problem. There is a difference between calibrated/uncalibrated view, but it is slight and the picture still looks attractive when the monitor is not calibrated. Mine on the other hand look dull and featureless.

This is a real issue, especially if one day I want to make a web site and most people do not have calibrated monitors.

I process my images at 8 bits in Pro Photo RGB and then convert to sRGB before saving. I have tried processing the image entirely in sRGB, but I saw no improvement.

Does anybody know what is going on?

Thank you very much for your comments.

Regards,
Christoph

Any chance of viewing your photos on another monitor, both calibrated and uncalibrated? Ambient room lighting can also have a big effect on how things look. As far as the web site, I feel your pain. I work hard to keep my system color calibrated, but when I see my images on other non-calibrated monitors it makes me want to cry. The whole color management subject is quite deep and there are many books and websites dedicated to it. I've learned some good stuff here -
http://www.digitaldog.net/

Thanks, Paul! I am just perplexed that some photographer's images, posted here, really do not look so different between different monitors, and mine do. It is very strange and I don't get it. I will look carefully at the link you sent me.

Thanks for the info.

Regards.
Christoph