How do you decide photo brightness?

12 years 10 months ago #80159 by Lisa JK
When post processing a picture, how do you decide what brightness level is appropriate? If I PP on my monitor at home, then the picture looks too dark on my monitor at work. I heard about something called calibration but I'm not sure what that is and how to do it.


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12 years 10 months ago #80161 by ko98
In one hell of an oversimplification, suffice it to say that some monitors are brighter/darker than others and reproduce colors differently than others. Calibration is a means to adjust your monitor to match a particular color standard, such as sRGB (among many others).

The advantage is that, if done correctly, your picture will look the same on any other monitor calibrated to the same standard and a hard copy print will look like the screen image if you use the same standard (actually, color space) when you print.


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12 years 10 months ago #80377 by TheNissanMan
ko hit the nail on the head, every monitor is different.

As to how to determine how bright the image should be in PP then it is purely down to you and what you think the miage needs. The great thing about photography is everybodies interpretations are different so you may look at th emimage on your screen and think wow whereas someone else could hate the shot.

It's what you think looks right at the time of editing the shot :)


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12 years 10 months ago #80439 by Henry Peach
Get a calibration kit. It may not seem as exciting as a new lens at first, but in the long run it's a very satisfying bit of gear. It won't help if other people's monitors aren't calibrated, but it's wonderful to be able to order prints with no corrections, and get them back just as you expected.
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12 years 10 months ago #80577 by cod
I agree 100% with previous posters. If you're serious about colour integrity a calibration kit is worth the money. The Spyder Pro kits are commonly used by enthusiasts. There are others that are equally good. If your monitor is well calibrated then you will get reasonably consistent results between what you see on different calibrated monitors and prints. Regardless, your image will always look different on different uncalibrated monitors.

Another factor in judging the brightness of your image is ambient light. All authoritative sources I've read suggest that photo editing is best done in a room with low ambient light levels. Try to avoid bright light shining directly on your screen or into your eyes from behind the screen. My own experience supports this.

Regards,
Chris

Chris O'Donoghue
Winnipeg, Canada
codonoghue.prosite.com

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