Archive 2015 · Screen Brightness Settings

avi85
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p.1 #1 · p.1 #1 · Screen Brightness Settings

Hi all, I am using a Macbook Pro (Retina) to edit my pictures. Recently, I was editing a photo and it looked great and vivid on my screen. Once I viewed it through my office desktop (ViewSonic LCD) it looks very dull and with low contrast. I was really bummed by this, and I can understand that there will be a wide gamut of screens out there that will display the image differently.

My question is, what is the typical brightness settings on a Macbook Pro that I can use to get a similar representation of the image when I print it. As I'm more worried about the prints look rather than how it looks on other screens.

Thank you!

Aug 01, 2015 at 09:19 PM

dgdg
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p.1 #2 · p.1 #2 · Screen Brightness Settings

You should get something like a Sypder or X-rite device which will calibrate your monitor for brightness, color, and contrast. I've used both and they work well.

David

Aug 02, 2015 at 08:01 AM

howardm4
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p.1 #3 · p.1 #3 · Screen Brightness Settings

+1

Get a calibrator if you want something that looks like consistency between the screen and print.

That said, if you're going to use the screen to envision/simulate what a print will look like, you're going to need to learn color management techniques. The brightness of the area where you examine the prints plays a big part in how bright the monitor needs to be.

Read and try to digest this:
https://luminous-landscape.com/why-are-my-prints-too-dark/

Aug 02, 2015 at 08:47 AM

redcrown
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p.1 #4 · p.1 #4 · Screen Brightness Settings

You already have a calibration device. It's your camera. Try this "trick":

1. Set your camera in Aperature Priority mode at f5.6 and ISO 400. If your camera has an otion to set "increments" for shutter speed, set it to the lowest possible setting. Instead of "full stop" increments, go for 1/2 or 1/3 stop increments.

2. Display a full white screen on your monitor (Notepad, Word).

3. Zoom the lens as far out as possible, set manual focus and at infinity (way out of focus).

4. Point the camera at the screen, very close, fill the viewfinder with white.

5. Meter that and look at the shutter speed. Some LCDs have polarizing filters that will fool a camera meter. So simply meter twice, once in landscape orinetation and once in portrait orientation. Take the highest reading.

Whatever shutter speed you get is a reasonable measure of the brightness (luminance) of the screen in the "cd/m2" units. So, if you get 1/200, the screen is at 200 cd/m2 and is way too bright. Your reading will probably be somewhere between 1/90 and 1/160.

Now repeat the test on your other monitor(s) and see if they are really that much different.

Next, take the whitest sheet of paper you can find and meter it under the same light where you will view your prints. The luminance of your monitor and the luminance of the white paper under print viewing conditions should be reasonably close. The monitor will usually be brighter, but not by much.

Some experts say that monitor brightness should be set depending on the ambient light around the monitor. They say if you edit in a brightly lit room, the monitor should be brighter than if you edit in a dark room. I don't agree. Your screen-to-print matching success will be better if monitor brightness matches print viewing brightness.

When prints are mounted on a wall in most home environments, that will be in the 90 to 120 cd/m2 range. But of course if your prints are on display in an art gallery under high intensity LED spotlights, then maybe a cd/m2 of 200 is appropriate.

Aug 02, 2015 at 11:24 AM

dhachey
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p.1 #5 · p.1 #5 · Screen Brightness Settings

+1, Also check your color display profile. There could be a mismatch between devices (I.e., prophoto vs. sRGB icc profiles). This wreaks all sorts of havoc when viewing images. Search the Internet for some tutorials on color management. Personally, I use a ColorMunki spectrophotometer that works great, but it's now a bit expensive.
...Dave

dgdg wrote:
You should get something like a Sypder or X-rite device which will calibrate your monitor for brightness, color, and contrast. I've used both and they work well.

David

Aug 02, 2015 at 11:45 AM

avi85
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p.1 #6 · p.1 #6 · Screen Brightness Settings

Thanks for the replies guys!
Thank you redcrown for the awesome explanation; I'll perform that experiment today!

Cheers!

Aug 02, 2015 at 11:45 AM

dhachey
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p.1 #7 · p.1 #7 · Screen Brightness Settings

While this approach might work, it isn't generally applicable. Think about the few percent of the population who are colorblind! Just get a spectrophotometer and do it right. No one ever said digital photography was cheap <grin>.

redcrown wrote:
You already have a calibration device. It's your camera. Try this "trick":

1. Set your camera in Aperature Priority mode at f5.6 and ISO 400. If your camera has an otion to set "increments" for shutter speed, set it to the lowest possible setting. Instead of "full stop" increments, go for 1/2 or 1/3 stop increments.

2. Display a full white screen on your monitor (Notepad, Word).

3. Zoom the lens as far out as possible, set manual focus and at infinity (way out of focus).

4. Point the camera at the screen, very close, fill the viewfinder with white.

5. Meter that and look...Show more →

Aug 02, 2015 at 11:50 AM

Dustin Gent
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p.1 #8 · p.1 #8 · Screen Brightness Settings

you also don't want to edit a photo with the brightness set to the highest setting. You want about 50% brightness. And calibrating is essential as well

Aug 02, 2015 at 01:24 PM

howardm4
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p.1 #9 · p.1 #9 · Screen Brightness Settings

you want a brightness that is correct for what you're doing. just blindly setting it to 50% or whatever isn't. The old iMac's were very bright and even at the lowest setting it was still too bright. would you still recommend 50% ?

what you want is something on the order of 90-120 cd/m2 and up to around 140 for quite brightly lit work areas. A calibrator will give you that information.

Aug 02, 2015 at 04:03 PM

Peter Figen
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p.1 #10 · p.1 #10 · Screen Brightness Settings

So, even if this "workaround" method of setting screen luminance is even somewhere in the ballpark, and that's questionable because many dslr meters are not calibrated to the same grayscale standard - even if it gets you close to the right brightness, it does nothing at all for gray balance, specific colors being off and most importantly, making a profile that describes THAT calibration to Photoshop and other color managed apps.

And just doing a visual sort of calibration is not very good either as our eyes are so adaptable that just a few seconds after staring at a mis-calibrated screen it'll look just fine and everything you do on it will look weird elsewhere.

As Howard correctly says, you need to set you screen to a measurable and repeatable luminance. The best setting for you will depend on the calibration instrument, as they're not all the same, the monitor you have, and most importantly, you'll have an accurate monitor profile so you know what you see is what you're really seeing. More or less, that is...

Aug 02, 2015 at 06:28 PM


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