Computer Monitors & Digital Photography

[roadtripper]

Sometimes when I'm looking at photographs on the 3-inch LCD of my Rebel Xsi the quality of the pictures looks magnificient, but when I get home and load them onto my computer, I'm just not too impressed. So... I'm wondering if my computer monitor is at all limiting my digital photography.

Here's what I'm using:
Monitor: 19inch Dell w/1280 by 1024 pixel resolution ; 32-bit quality; 96-DPI (considered high-end quality when I bought it in 2004)
Graphics Card: 128MB Radeon 9600 PRO (considered medium-end quality when I bought it in 2004)

The images that the Xsi is producing are 4272x2848 pixels. I shoot mostly 100 ISO, f/11-f/22 range and always use a tripod.

Has this issue been discussed before? Any help would be appreciated.

Thanks!

 

[chipc]

Has this issue been discussed before? Any help would be appreciated.

See the post by, who else, DougPaul!
http://www.vftt.org/forums/showthread.php?t=18939

Proper monitor calibration (and re-calibration over time) can make a big difference.

chipc

 

[Grumpy]

... I'm wondering if my computer monitor is at all limiting my digital photography. ...

The short answer is, probably yes.

All monitors are not created equal. Some simply are better than others for critical photographic applications.

My MacBook Pro laptop, for example, has a very nice monitor that allows me to get digital images pretty close to where they need to be after a shoot. It is great for mobility. But a good desktop monitor is definitely superior, as I learn when I switch to a well-maintained machine at the newspaper’s photo department office.

There is a difference between what you will see in the same image viewed on a matte screen and a glossy screen.

I calibrate my laptop (matte screen) using the built-in Mac operating system software, and that works for my purposes. I suspect if you have built-in calibration software you can keep your own monitor in usable calibration. The procedures are not especially arcane – just follow the prompts.

Recalibration needs be done fairly often to keep things up to snuff. (You decide what that means – I tweak weekly or monthly for my purposes, but some guys I know recalibrate daily.)

One thing I was surprised to learn when looking into this issue a while ago is that CRT monitors literally wear out after a while, in terms of their ability to render color and tonal gradation. The LCD types are more durable. Durability is measured in years – astonishingly few for CRTs.

You also might want to remember that lighting in the space where you use your computer to process photos makes a difference. I prefer relatively dim lighting, myself, but don’t always get my way on that.

Finally, don’t forget that algorithms used to process your image in the camera for viewing in the preview monitor are optimized for that use and may differ considerably from those used in your computer system. This can change the way the image looks at preview and when you edit on your computer.

Certain editing software packages also change (or give different versions of) the appearance of images as they hit my computer screen. They are perhaps better used for evaluating image content than for evaluating color or tonal quality.

I have seen some very good work produced using horribly out-of-calibration monitors in poorly lit workrooms – by people who have a good sense for correlating what they see on the screen to what they will see in the final output. But this is by far the exception rather than the norm.

Poorly calibrated, worn out monitors in poorly lit workplaces make the game a crapshoot for the huge majority of us.

For most of our uses I think what we are looking for first is to produce an image that looks “right” to us. A properly calibrated monitor helps ensure that we can communicate that vision to the world. Tweaking to match various outputs is a final step that can be automated to a degree by good color profiling for different outputs.

(And now I am in way over my head.)

G.

 

[Neil]

Here's how I tested my set-up:

I took a picture with lots of color and had it developed at the local camera shop.

Then, I compared the print to the computer screen and breathed a sigh of relief when the colors matched perfectly.

 

[MichaelJ]

Note that on many cameras the little LCD screen is not going to show accurate color. It's going to auto-adjust for the brightness of the image, show more vivid color, more vivid contrast, etc. If you really want to know how an image is going to look when you've just taken it, learn how to use the histogram feature (if your camera supports it) to see the various amounts of color and brightness present.

 

[David Metsky]

Also, a 3" LCD can hide all sorts of flaws that will show up on a larger screen. Pretty much anything looks good on a screen that small.

 

[Grumpy]

Here's how I tested my set-up:

I took a picture with lots of color and had it developed at the local camera shop.

Then, I compared the print to the computer screen and breathed a sigh of relief when the colors matched perfectly.

I think that's a decent idea. The question, though, is what do you do when the image on the computer screen looks very different from what you see in the print?

G.

 

[Brambor]

good question

This one good reason to shoot RAW or to retain your original shot untouched. There will come situations (like this one) when you wish you had the original shot and could re-process it.

I found that with a PC it gives you far more headaches to keep your monitor calibrated than with a MAC. I'm a long PC user but my next home machine will be an iMac to reduce the hassles of brightness and color management.

 

[Neil]

I think that's a decent idea. The question, though, is what do you do when the image on the computer screen looks very different from what you see in the print?

G.

That's why I breathed a sigh of relief.

I was told to try this:

buy a calibrating spider, they are about $100. This is a tool that you attach to the front of your monitor and run a series of colour tests, it uses these colour tests to generate a monitor (icc) profile for you that you then install to the colour management section of your display properties.

Keep in mind that once you've generated and are using this ICC profile, all pictures you edit on your monitor will have slightly different looking colours on other monitors, which is why I rarely use my calibrated profile.

Also, after editing images in PhotoShop or Elements (either application should already have AdobeRGB as their default colour space) you should also assign the AdobeRGB colour space to your finished pics before saving the final image for print. You should do this regardless if your printing the pics on your home printer or sending them off to a pro printing company.

This is how you get the closest possible colour match between what you see on your monitor and what you get in a print.

 

[DougPaul]

buy a calibrating spider, they are about $100. This is a tool that you attach to the front of your monitor and run a series of colour tests, it uses these colour tests to generate a monitor (icc) profile for you that you then install to the colour management section of your display properties.

Keep in mind that once you've generated and are using this ICC profile, all pictures you edit on your monitor will have slightly different looking colours on other monitors, which is why I rarely use my calibrated profile.

You need to calibrate all your monitors and use the appropriate profile for each to minimize the differences.

Also, after editing images in PhotoShop or Elements (either application should already have AdobeRGB as their default colour space) you should also assign the AdobeRGB colour space to your finished pics before saving the final image for print. You should do this regardless if your printing the pics on your home printer or sending them off to a pro printing company.

This is how you get the closest possible colour match between what you see on your monitor and what you get in a print.

This advice is aimed toward commercial printing, not viewing on a screen. AdobeRGB is a printing-oriented color space. sRGB is the network standard, what your screen uses, and the default on most cameras. (Some cameras can be set for either colorspace.) In general, there is some loss of information (ie some colors will be altered) in conversion between color spaces.

http://www.kenrockwell.com/tech/adobe-rgb.htm
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SRGB_color_space
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Adobe_RGB_color_space
http://danandsherree.com/2005/03/04/should_i_shoot_in_th.php
http://www.steves-digicams.com/techcorner/October_2006.html
Luminous-landscape advocates yet a third color space:
http://www.luminous-landscape.com/tutorials/prophoto-rgb.shtml

The consensus appears to be use sRGB unless you know what you are doing and use formal ICC profiling. Use sRGB for pictures posted on the internet.

Doug

 

[DougPaul]

One thing I was surprised to learn when looking into this issue a while ago is that CRT monitors literally wear out after a while, in terms of their ability to render color and tonal gradation. The LCD types are more durable. Durability is measured in years – astonishingly few for CRTs.

Color CRTs have 3 electron guns which can wear out, however I've seen CRTs that have lasted many years. Calibration should enable one to compensate for the first part of this wear. CRTs are not affected by viewing angle and have been the quality standard for many years.

LCDs have different problems. The liquid crystal part may be durable, but the fluorescent backlight is not. These displays often die because the backlight dims or dies. (LED backlight LCDs are just becoming available and should reduce this problem.) The colors, brightness and grayscale of LCDs are affected by the viewing angle--with older displays one literally has to view them from the centerline (both vertically and horizontally) to get a good image. The newer ones are less angle sensitive, but it is still an issue.

Doug

 

[DougPaul]

Here's how I tested my set-up:

I took a picture with lots of color and had it developed at the local camera shop.

Then, I compared the print to the computer screen and breathed a sigh of relief when the colors matched perfectly.

Viewing a reflected image (ie a print) and an emitted image (eg a screen, a projector, or a slide) have important differences. When comparing the two, the colors of the reflected image will depend on the coloration of the room light (picture illumination) while the screen image will be independent of the room light (as long as it is not washed out). Thus you need a calibrated room light to make a fully meaningful comparison.

The eye and brain have rather sophisticated color normalization and do pretty well to normalize the colors when looking at one at a time. (The eye/brain system can be fooled--we call these optical illusions.)

Doug