Help....
Have been fighting some calibration issues with new monitor, and have resolved all but one, luminance. For those who set your monitor, what luminance value do you use... like many of us posting on this site I primarily post images to the internet and do not post.
In checking articles, 100-120 cd/m2 seems to be what is recommended to set monitor to, but this keeps referring to prints. GretagMacbeth also recommened the 120, but it looks way to soft, images somewhat lifeless! If I use this to calibrate my shots, not so sure others will like them....
So, for those who calibrate their monitors, just what value do you use for luminance.... Thanks a bunch!
I use around 95-100 cd/m2, which is what color management guru Andrew Rodney recommends for LCD monitors with my ambient lighting.
Your mileage may vary slightly, but you want the blackest blacks and the whitest whites possible in your ambient light.
Im find a setting of 120 waaayyyy to light, everything looks murky or as if the shadow recovery was overused... what Im trying to set correctly is so my edits properly show on websites as that is what most my images end up, understanding the 100-120 value if setting for prints, which as a rule Im not... what a mess once I dug into this.
Posted by Jesse Speer on June 23, 2008 at 10:17 PM
Variances in monitors (default intensity), workflow needs and ambient light will produce many answers to your question. I use 130 for my NEC LCD, with D65 and 2.2 gamma. Optimized for home printing. I'm not the expert here. Maybe Nat will chime in. I would imagine that something around 100-120 would be a good match for the defaults of a majority of LCD users viewing your photos. I think 120 is a common default for most LCDs?
Posted by Nat Coalson on June 24, 2008 at 12:35 AM
Timothy, what program are you viewing your images in? If Photoshop or Lightroom, as Jesse alluded to, if images look too light the problem may be the gamma setting. Make sure to always use 2.2 and 6500 for the display white point.
If you're judging how your images look in a browser, which one? Most are not color-managed.
How does the rest of the system and application UI look with those settings? Also too light?
120 is the default luminance for most "professional-level" LCDs and it's what the EyeOne sets as default. I think it's too bright; I usually use 110. I work in low light, though. The more light in your studio, the brighter your display will need to be... which means much brighter than a print will ever look.
To best match screen to print use lower brightness settings on the display. And close the shades if there's a window in the room.
With color management under control, you can ensure the accuracy of color and tone in your images and to a somewhat lesser degree the accuracy of prints. But understand that it's not possible to prepare images in such a way that you can be absolutely certain how they will look on someone else's monitor. In general, you can expect your "accurate" images will look "good" on other people's monitors, but that's as far as it goes with current technology. Lighter, darker, color shifts etc. are out of your control when presenting online. All you can do is close the color management loop on your own system.
Of course, most of the people viewing these particular forums have good quality displays and have CMS involved. So all-around we're enjoying better lookiung images than non-photo kinds of sites.
Also - as of version 3, Firefox now supports color management. But it's off by default.
To turn on color management in Firefox:
1. In the Address bar enter about:config
2. Click through the warranty warning
3. Find the setting gfx.color_management.display_profile; set it to true
4. Quit and relaunch Firefox.
Posted by Craig Schultz on June 24, 2008 at 12:36 PM
I think Nat meant to say; change gfx.color_management.enabled to True for the Firefox 3 color management.
OK, I am trying to calibrate for web page viewing not so much the printing.... when have the color temp and gamma set to 6500 and 2.2, all fine there, it's just he luminance thats driving me nuts, 120 is waaaaaaaaaayyyyyyyy dimm. Ive gotten some rejections on railroad related photo sites claiming images look to washed out/over shadow recovery when in fact they are not, which has caused me to notice that correcting the images based on a screen luminance of 120 is infact causing the images to look washed out, in need of contrast, where if luminance higher, say 150-170 then I properly correct.
Again though, this is mostly for web viewing!
Thanks!
Posted by Mark Stahlke on June 24, 2008 at 10:44 PM
Are you converting the images to sRGB before you post them on the web? I notice that images in Adobe RGB look washed out in a web browser.
It would help if you could post a couple of images. Since most folks here are using color managed systems, we may be able to give you better insight into the images' brightness, contrast, and color balance. This will help determine if the problem is on your system or if your critics have bad or badly adjusted monitors.
Probably too many variables here to overcome just by asking the opinions/settings of others. And if 120 is so dim, it makes me think this something unique to your monitor. Nothing wrong with that. That's why you see so many different luminance values tossed around online. (I know that NEC recommends 150 for some of their newer LCD monitors, for example.) If you "properly correct" at 150-170, then why not just use that luminance range - if you're only using your monitor to prep screen images?
And then I have to agree with Mark. Posting sample images for critique will likely provide the feedback you need. Since you seem to be stuck on luminance, maybe try a few different settings and post the results.
Posted by Timothy Tonge on June 25, 2008 at 10:40 PM
Ill try to find some and get posted, thanks for all the info, good topic!
Discussion
11 repliesHave been fighting some calibration issues with new monitor, and have resolved all but one, luminance. For those who set your monitor, what luminance value do you use... like many of us posting on this site I primarily post images to the internet and do not post.
In checking articles, 100-120 cd/m2 seems to be what is recommended to set monitor to, but this keeps referring to prints. GretagMacbeth also recommened the 120, but it looks way to soft, images somewhat lifeless! If I use this to calibrate my shots, not so sure others will like them....
So, for those who calibrate their monitors, just what value do you use for luminance.... Thanks a bunch!
Your mileage may vary slightly, but you want the blackest blacks and the whitest whites possible in your ambient light.
If you're judging how your images look in a browser, which one? Most are not color-managed.
How does the rest of the system and application UI look with those settings? Also too light?
120 is the default luminance for most "professional-level" LCDs and it's what the EyeOne sets as default. I think it's too bright; I usually use 110. I work in low light, though. The more light in your studio, the brighter your display will need to be... which means much brighter than a print will ever look.
To best match screen to print use lower brightness settings on the display. And close the shades if there's a window in the room.
With color management under control, you can ensure the accuracy of color and tone in your images and to a somewhat lesser degree the accuracy of prints. But understand that it's not possible to prepare images in such a way that you can be absolutely certain how they will look on someone else's monitor. In general, you can expect your "accurate" images will look "good" on other people's monitors, but that's as far as it goes with current technology. Lighter, darker, color shifts etc. are out of your control when presenting online. All you can do is close the color management loop on your own system.
Of course, most of the people viewing these particular forums have good quality displays and have CMS involved. So all-around we're enjoying better lookiung images than non-photo kinds of sites.
Also - as of version 3, Firefox now supports color management. But it's off by default.
To turn on color management in Firefox:
1. In the Address bar enter about:config
2. Click through the warranty warning
3. Find the setting gfx.color_management.display_profile; set it to true
4. Quit and relaunch Firefox.
Craig
Again though, this is mostly for web viewing!
Thanks!
It would help if you could post a couple of images. Since most folks here are using color managed systems, we may be able to give you better insight into the images' brightness, contrast, and color balance. This will help determine if the problem is on your system or if your critics have bad or badly adjusted monitors.
Cheers,
And then I have to agree with Mark. Posting sample images for critique will likely provide the feedback you need. Since you seem to be stuck on luminance, maybe try a few different settings and post the results.