LCD Brightness settings, your recommendations please
mtnbiker
Registered Users Posts: 178 Major grins
I've been struggling with dark prints lately and see conflicting information on what the correct luminance value should be on a LCD monitor.
Right now I am using an Apple Cinema Display and calibrating with a eye-one. Luminance is set to recommended 120 which is obviously too bright for printing.
I have seen mention of everything from 80-120.
In addition if I proof for printing at say 90, the images I upload to smugmug will be too bright for online viewing because everyone else's monitors will be 120+
What's the best way to tackle these issues?
1. correct LCD luminance for printing
2. displaying images online and allowing people to print, while not blowing out highlights for online viewing.
thanks
Right now I am using an Apple Cinema Display and calibrating with a eye-one. Luminance is set to recommended 120 which is obviously too bright for printing.
I have seen mention of everything from 80-120.
In addition if I proof for printing at say 90, the images I upload to smugmug will be too bright for online viewing because everyone else's monitors will be 120+
What's the best way to tackle these issues?
1. correct LCD luminance for printing
2. displaying images online and allowing people to print, while not blowing out highlights for online viewing.
thanks
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Comments
"You miss 100% of the shots you don't take" - Wayne Gretzky
I ask because a number of recent hardware calibrators have the ability to measure the ambient light of the room you have the monitor in and then, during the calibration process, will recommend a specific setting.
The ambient light is the biggest factor in what white luminance value and also, temperature, that the screen should be calibrated to. There is no single correct value.
For a dark room with no illumination, only the light of the monitor, 80 might be the best value but most modern mid to low end LCD monitors are not capable of being accurately calibrated below 100. To get to that level not only does the brightness have to be reduced to "0" (zero) but significant adjustments have to be made to the RGB sliders from the monitors' on-board menu. If you go too low with your RGB levels you end up being "off" the monitor's internal calibration curve and odds are your monitor, while being set to eliminate dark prints, will now have an unnatural colour caste present or exhibit banding/posterization, etc..
In essence, to get to a good calibration with one of the current mid to low end LCD's, you need a moderately lit room in order to calibrate to a white luminance value where your sliders are not greatly reduce.
This is a function of the perceptual nature of your eye/brain and it's ability to adjust to ambient conditions. A bright screen in a bright room will look balanced to your eye. A moderately bright screen in a moderately lit room will look balanced.
Most people report that their LCD screens look grayish when they first reduce brightness levels down to a level to support print matching. That's normal. Eventually their eyes adapt.
Don't worry about people with too bright screens.... they're probably looking at them in too bright rooms and they probably are viewing them in "Vivid" mode "cause they like bright colours". Post process your images on a monitor calibrated to industry standards for best prints and viewing. You fellow photo hobbyists will appreciate your balanced images.
Btw.... dark prints are also a function of using the correct paper profile when printing and soft-proofing.
Make sure you start from a monitor and video card that has been set to defaults. Also, ensure you don't have something like Adobe Gamma loading. The only software on the system influencing the appearance of the screen should be the calibrator's and the video card utility (which you don't touch).
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I consider the Apple monitors to be part of the mid-range.
At least one of the high end Eizo's seem to be able to be accurately calibrated as low as 80 cd/m2. If you read their web pages for the CG series warranty you'll see a somewhat surprising statement about having the white luminance and temperature values too high.
"The warranty period of the backlight is warranted only if the monitors are used within the recommended brightness of up to and including 80 cd/m2 for the CG222W, 100 cd/m2 for the CG221 / CG211, and 120 cd/m2 for the CG301W / CG243W / CG242W / CG241W / CG232W with the color temperature between 5,000 K-6,500 K and limited to three (3) years from the date of purchase subject to the usage time being less than or equal to 10,000 hours."
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it's all in how you choose to do it...a bright screen is nice to have when showing clients the images, but when you go to print, they'll be confused by all the technical stuff.
The 120 is the general recommendation for LCDs, as shown in my Eye One Match software, and on various sites online. I know this isn't the correct value for printing.
If I'm sending my photos through Bay Photo there must be a luminance value they suggest using to get the best range in their prints. It doesn't matter what my environment is if the printing company is set up a certain way. I would think I should set my monitor to their recommendations, then do color adjustments from there. If I set my monitor to existing conditions in my work area, there is no way it will match the printing process Bay Photo is using.
120 cd/m2 can be the correct brightness value but it relates to how bright your room is that you edit in. You set your brightness for print matching. Too bright and prints will be dark. Too dark and prints will be bright. It is all related to the ambient lighting of the room you are in.
Dark (black) Room ....... 80cd/m2
Low Light (maybe one 40w bulb a 10x10 room) ....... 100cd/m2
Mid Light (maybe one 60w bulb a 10x10 room) ....... 110cd/m2
Corporate Office with WCB light level ................... 140 cd/m2
Your eyes react to the ambient lighting of the room - it is a perceptual issue. When you post process and adjust the levels of the image, what looks good to you on the screen is a function of the ambient lighting. It is sort of like those perceptual tricks where you have two identical color squares but one is on a gray background and the other is on a different color and the question is whether or not the centre color square is the same in both examples.
At some point whether it be 100cd/m2 and a temperature of 6500K or 120cd/m2 and 5800K (a common temperature suggested by the calibrator software), you have to post process an image, adjusting the levels, etc, and then print this test image and compare it to what is on your screen. You may have to lower the white luminance slightly if the the print looks dark, or raise it if the image appears bright.
A key point here is that if you are doing your own printing, that you are using a standard paper, standard ink, and have the correct ICC paper profile from the paper supplier for the ink you use. Your printing software will have to be pointed to this profile.
Using a Canon or Epson or HP printer it is simplest if you use their inks and papers as they supply a profile for the paper. You can buy profiles from 3rd parties who will make them up for you for a specific paper and type of ink.
I don't believe they specify a luminance value but they will specify the color space. You calibrate your work flow for brightness in your work environment and to a known standard for color gamut, either the sRGB color space or the AdobeRGB color space or, and I have no experience here, I imagine CMYK may be an option for some off site printers. Many or perhaps, most, commercial printers use the sRGB color space but offer to you an ICC paper profile that you can use for "soft proofing". You need to obtain that profile from them and then point your software to it. Not all editing software can "soft proof". Adobe CS3/CS4, ACDsee Pro, Paint Shop PRO and a few others can soft proof. I believe PS Elements cannot soft proof.
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Correct?
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Most non-budget calibrators will also allow you to set a custom target for black luminance. I've read a number of monitor reviews where they were not able to get to the lowest black luminance value unless the white luminance was in the 140 cd/m2 range. The reason the reviewer was trying to do this is to determine the maximum static contrast ratio of the monitor.
So with some monitors it appears they would not be displaying their best contrast ratio unless you were willing to edit in a somewhat bright room due the 140cd/m2.
Most correctly calibrated monitors will have a static contrast ratio somewhere between 600:1 and 900:1 .
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