Archive 2014 · One from last year

ben egbert
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p.1 #1 · p.1 #1 · One from last year

In the "best of 2013" thread, it looks like my images are too bright. This is the result of processing for print. I re-calibrated my monitor to a brighter setting and am working on web specific processing and redoing many old images. I found his one from last spring and am pretty sure I have not shown it before.

Jan 05, 2014 at 11:22 AM

ckcarr
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p.1 #2 · p.1 #2 · One from last year

Very nice Ben. Looks familiar too.

I make that mistake often. Have to adjust my monitor for printing, then forget to change it back...

Jan 05, 2014 at 11:32 AM

ben egbert
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p.1 #3 · p.1 #3 · One from last year

ckcarr wrote:
Very nice Ben. Looks familiar too.

I make that mistake often. Have to adjust my monitor for printing, then forget to change it back...

Glad I am not the only one. I spent lots of time at the Post Processing forum to work on this. Changed papers, got a new profile etc. Some claim they get the same brightness in prints as with a fairly bright monitor. I am now thinking its a vision issue, I have some normal age related cataracts and may not see reflected light as well as transmitted light. IE, a slight loss of luminance appears like a large loss to me.

I have another shot here that includes Balanced Rock on the left side but I was trying to show the La Sals and this composition worked better.

Jan 05, 2014 at 11:47 AM

JimFox
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p.1 #4 · p.1 #4 · One from last year

Hey Ben,

Nice looking shot here.

I will have to say that I don't adjust my monitor at all for printing. I just make sure that in Photoshop my "Proof Setup" is set to Internet sRGB and all is fine since I process my shots to look best in IE and the printers I use have sRGB as their standard that they read for a color profile.

As for the brightness, the best solution I have found is to be editing on your computer in an area that is well lit. I have a lamp with a diffused shade that sits above me and just to my left to provide even lighting to my work screen. The worst thing one could do for example is say, edit inside a dark room like a camper or motel room with no lights on. One needs very bright ambient light to equalize the light from the display. The best I can equate that to is we don't view our prints in dark room with no lighting do we? Because our monitors are lit up and we can see them in the dark, we confuse ourselves that ambient light doesn't matter. Good lighting in the work area is #1...

Well... just a few thoughts.

Jim

Jan 05, 2014 at 12:28 PM

ben egbert
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p.1 #5 · p.1 #5 · One from last year

JimFox wrote:
Hey Ben,

Nice looking shot here.

I will have to say that I don't adjust my monitor at all for printing. I just make sure that in Photoshop my "Proof Setup" is set to Internet sRGB and all is fine since I process my shots to look best in IE and the printers I use have sRGB as their standard that they read for a color profile.

As for the brightness, the best solution I have found is to be editing on your computer in an area that is well lit. I have a lamp with a diffused shade that sits above me...Show more →

Thanks Jim, and while I was working this issue, I found an ISO spec for lighting (its in my NEC calibration instructions) that actually specifies a lux level for ambient as well as viewing. I can even measure it with my Xrite puck.

Even though I have a nice well lit display area, the lights are seldom on because its also a living area which trumps display.

Since I print at home, I use paper profiles and have a custom profile. Srgb is only used for web in this case. But proofing my images in srgb is a good idea and I will see if it changes anything.

Edit. I just did an sRGB proof. I hope my image does not look like this on the web, it lost almost all saturation and it got darker. The image never looks like this on my monitor. I wonder if I need to convert to srbg before proofing? That seems to be it, Don't proof while its still Prophoto RGB. Once I convert to sRGB it proofs fine. I never show a Prophoto RGB on the web.

Jan 05, 2014 at 01:59 PM

Camperjim
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p.1 #6 · p.1 #6 · One from last year

Ben, this looks great on my monitor. The colors are bright and clear and look very natural...just the way I remember the setting sun hitting these rocks. I think this would print very well, as is, and no additional brightness should be necessary. Of course, I am judging that based on my printing and the lighting I would normally use to view prints.

Jan 05, 2014 at 09:40 PM

Kee Woo Rhee
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p.1 #7 · p.1 #7 · One from last year

Very nice image, Ben. It is always nice to go back to old images and check to see if anything can be improved.
I don't think I can compare your newly processed image to the old, but I love this image.
Have a special year, 2014!
Kee

Jan 05, 2014 at 09:44 PM

ben egbert
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p.1 #8 · p.1 #8 · One from last year

Camperjim wrote:
Ben, this looks great on my monitor. The colors are bright and clear and look very natural...just the way I remember the setting sun hitting these rocks. I think this would print very well, as is, and no additional brightness should be necessary. Of course, I am judging that based on my printing and the lighting I would normally use to view prints.

Hi Jim, I want to print it but need to decide which print it replaces. Wish I had more space. I suspect I would need to add just a bit of brightness to make it match the screen, but this is not a dark image so it would probably be ok as is.

My prints are always about 1/3 stop darker than the screen (to my eyes), even when the lighting meets all the specs. But its only a problem for prints that are dark by nature. This print will be recognizable in a softly lit room. Prints that don't will not last long on my walls.

Jan 06, 2014 at 10:57 AM

ben egbert
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p.1 #9 · p.1 #9 · One from last year

Kee Woo Rhee wrote:
Very nice image, Ben. It is always nice to go back to old images and check to see if anything can be improved.
I don't think I can compare your newly processed image to the old, but I love this image.
Have a special year, 2014!
Kee

Thanks, Kee, I appreciate your comments. I almost left one on your bird landscape which I really liked by the way. I think you are correct about whats going on, 14mm is very short and even a large bird will look very small and hence could be very close. But I try to stay out of arguments where I am unsure of the physics.

Jan 06, 2014 at 11:01 AM

Slabshaft
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p.1 #10 · p.1 #10 · One from last year

Nice! The values looks about right to me. The shadows could probably be darker. I always just keep two versions of each photo, one for the screen and one for print (which I keep in 16 bit). Some shops give you their ICC profiles for "soft proofing" which is pretty useful for pre-visualizing prints.

PS: I've spent a lot of time reading the RGB values in the files I'm editing and using the "threshold" adjustment layer to detect clipping. My monitor compresses the whites, so what I think is white, tends to be dingy and not very bright in print, but it does the opposite in blacks. On metallic paper, RGB values under 35/35/35 go totally black but still hold detail on my monitor. "Soft proofing" helps that, but just getting a feel for the numbers goes a long way.

Jan 06, 2014 at 02:32 PM

ben egbert
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p.1 #11 · p.1 #11 · One from last year

Slabshaft wrote:
Nice! The values looks about right to me. The shadows could probably be darker. I always just keep two versions of each photo, one for the screen and one for print (which I keep in 16 bit). Some shops give you their ICC profiles for "soft proofing" which is pretty useful for pre-visualizing prints.

PS: I've spent a lot of time reading the RGB values in the files I'm editing and using the "threshold" adjustment layer to detect clipping. My monitor compresses the whites, so what I think is white, tends to be dingy and not very bright in print, but...Show more →

Thanks for the feedback. I ran a poll at the Post Processing forum and got ties at 80 and 120cd/mm^2 with 22 votes each and 20 votes for 100 cd/mm^2 (very few above 120). After that I moved my monitor from 80 to 120. Of course they are more printer oriented folks, I wonder what people who are primarily into web display would say?

I print at home on Photorag either Hahnamule or Canson. Both are matte papers. I try to keep RGB at 15.15.15 or above. I don't have trouble with whites or even blacks so much as midtones. For darker prints (lots of shadows areas and not much bright color) I usually need to lighten a bit.

I just printed this image on Cansen and it could be brighter, even when displayed under my LED spots. It did not match my monitor at 120 under appropriate illumination.

Jan 06, 2014 at 03:48 PM


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