Monitor calibration and what the customers see?
Desert Dave
Registered Users Posts: 11 Big grins
Alright I'll try asking here...
Taking the step from photography as a hobby to selling some prints and have run into the hurdle of getting my prints to appear like they do on my monitor. Seems I'm not alone in this as the wealth of information regarding monitor calibration, printing profiles etc has kept me reading for days.
Yes, my prints appear dark. (using bay photo w/color correction). Up until now I haven't calibrated my monitor using any hardware, I've simply used some online tools and have always felt I was close. VERY anecdotally, I've seen my work on others monitors and with slight differences always felt they were at least close enough to my vision. For that matter looking at others work (that I highly respect) I'm generally pleased with exposure.
So my first step is to get my monitor calibrated with a tool (haven't purchased yet). At quick glance using smugmugs calibration prints as well as my own I had printed, I'd estimate I need to brighten my images a full stop or even 1.5 stops to get them to match the prints (or edit my prints with a calibrated monitor darkened the same amount).
o.k., I'll get to the point. IF I get my monitor to match prints in the wysiwyg fashion, I'm guessing that to the majority of people/customers viewing my images they will appear overexposed, therefore making them less desirable. Or leave them as is and have them receive a print that doesn't match what they see.
It's almost as if I would like to upload one file for viewing and another for printing. How far does color correction go when talking about exposure? Those that sell/share photos for print how do you handle this inconsistency?
Taking the step from photography as a hobby to selling some prints and have run into the hurdle of getting my prints to appear like they do on my monitor. Seems I'm not alone in this as the wealth of information regarding monitor calibration, printing profiles etc has kept me reading for days.
Yes, my prints appear dark. (using bay photo w/color correction). Up until now I haven't calibrated my monitor using any hardware, I've simply used some online tools and have always felt I was close. VERY anecdotally, I've seen my work on others monitors and with slight differences always felt they were at least close enough to my vision. For that matter looking at others work (that I highly respect) I'm generally pleased with exposure.
So my first step is to get my monitor calibrated with a tool (haven't purchased yet). At quick glance using smugmugs calibration prints as well as my own I had printed, I'd estimate I need to brighten my images a full stop or even 1.5 stops to get them to match the prints (or edit my prints with a calibrated monitor darkened the same amount).
o.k., I'll get to the point. IF I get my monitor to match prints in the wysiwyg fashion, I'm guessing that to the majority of people/customers viewing my images they will appear overexposed, therefore making them less desirable. Or leave them as is and have them receive a print that doesn't match what they see.
It's almost as if I would like to upload one file for viewing and another for printing. How far does color correction go when talking about exposure? Those that sell/share photos for print how do you handle this inconsistency?
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I have a color calibrated monitor and when I proof-view the photos in Photoshop (using the color profiles from the labs) the color and brightness is always different. Not bad, just different, and I'm ok with that difference. I've ordered a test print and it looks good, although the colors do not match 100%.
I once tried to process a photo so that the screen and print color matched. I had layers out the wazoo, and it still never matched perfectly.
So, I gave up. I process my photos so they look good on screen. But I accept that they will also look good in print, just a bit different.
I do not let labs "color-correct" my photos. Letting someone else mess with my colors and tones ads an unknown variable.
That's my 2¢ worth.
When you have a hi quality color calibrated monitor you are starting from a known standardized condition.
You can not control what the condition of other monitors are.
When choosing color correction, Bay photo includes luminescence value as well as color so if you have paid for color correction and your prints are too dark send them back.
I personally use two different monitor settings. One with a higher luminescence value for normal viewing and processing images for electronic viewing. I use a lower luminescence for processing images for print.
Note: I do most of my own printing, and normally get a very close match on the first print. If I am working on a fine art print I may do several proof prints with minor adjustments in between. This is fast and easy at home. Not so fast and easy using an outside printer.
The goal, and quite achievable is to get a very close match to your monitor, but it does take some time and effort.
When working with an outside lab you need to start with a good file, soft proof and go back and forth (some trial and error) with the printer until you know what processing adjustments will work for this vendor and their process and paper. Change the process, chemical to inkjet or the paper and you need to start all over again.
Sam
But when the customer is basing their purchase off what they see on their crappy monitor, there is little hope of the print matching what they see. Even if color correction includes luminescence, the lab has no way of knowing what the customer saw on their screen.
So my solution is... screw it. I use a calibrated monitor, soft proof to make sure it'll look ok in print, and don't use lab color correction.
If I leave CC off I know the colors will be off a little but at least the color relationships will be the same.
Didn't mean to re hash an old subject as I've read to death solutions to get monitors to match prints close enough, and I already feel that I can do that.
Since I started this thread I have had my monitor calibrated, and it was close, as I suspected. Slighty bright and slightly cool, but close enough that all of my previous photos still have my vision
I feel fairly confident ( I Have) that I can produce a file that prints the way I like, it just doesn't look good on my monitor and vise versa. I've disabled CC at Bay photo and so far have been more happy with the results.
So in the end I've concluded that I could be happy with a file for the internet that will look good/close enough to a majority of customers....assuming that most monitors I've seen calibrated or not will appear bright (for obvious reasons) I would LOVE to be able to substitute a different file for printing. From what I've seen smugmug offers the soft proof option that allows one to make final corrections on a proof between the time it's sold and printed, but from what I understand that then becomes the new displayed photo.
Is there any way to display one photo file and have it print from a different file on smugmug.
We can go on and on all day long to prospective customers how the problem is THEIR monitor and how the print photo should be displayed with proper gallery lighting but I think by far the majority of people who buy my photos will not be doing that. I think the two file could be a good compromise that works for most....I just don't know if I can do that through Smugmug.
and yes, I expect 99% of my sales will be direct online orders.
More info at- http://help.smugmug.com/customer/portal/articles/93355.
Yeah, that's what I was talking about but I called it "soft proof" by mistake.
That's so close to what I need, but if I read that correctly once you replace the photo with the print version that becomes the new file displayed in smugmug. So everybody after that will be viewing the print file, and I'm back to square one. I suppose I could replace it back every single time, but man that seems like a real pain. Besides I'm going to be selling SO many photos I might not be able to keep up
You might be very surprised at the difference the paper can make, both in color and luminosity. If you're using Photoshop or Lightroom, just pull up an image in soft proof mode and choose a bunch of difference ICC profiles that should already be in your list by default. You'll see huge differences in the virtual final image.
Lastly, if it's an important print, I will still hard proof it. And even then, differences is print size will alter the perceived contrasts and color saturation.
Printing is an art unto itself...
For now I've come to the conclusion that I'm going to use the "proof delay" feature and have two files for each photo. I've done quite a few test prints using the ICC profile and some trial and error and have been getting results I'm happy with in print.
While at first I thought it might be a pain to have to switch files for every sale, I had to do a reality check.....exactly how many sales do I really expect right now? lol I suppose if I get to the point where it really is a pain because I have that many sales it will be a good problem and I'll figure out a new solution. In the meantime I'll roll with the proof delay and see how well that works out.