Black or white or ....

Awais Yaqub

Ok here is what i am noticing since a long time finally i am going to ask

photo looks different against Black or white backgrounds .Got what i am saying ? should i edit photos according to photoshop background color ?
or this has something to do with my monitor ?:wink

jdryan3

Grey, make everything 18% grey...
Yes the same image will look different depending upon whether a black or white matte (or background). Of course I have color managed my monitor. I have my monitor background at 18% gray. I also edit only using the glow of the monitor (no ambient light sources). I know of a number of people who have the walls painted at 18% gray.

I'm sure others can (and will) explain the optical issues related to the black/white background. I just know that I am trying to eliminate all those issues when I adjust the color of my image.

That said, sitting here in my office with overhead fluorescent, I'm sure that neither of these look the same as how you are seeing them. It is just the nature of light temperature.

claudermilk

I have ALL of my image-related apps that allow it set to about middle gray background (either 128,128,128 or 64,64,64) to eliminate that effect as much as possible. If you really want to get obsessive about it, I've read you should use D50 or D65 lights in the work area and have a shade on your screen.

sgbotsford

Colored Mats

Awais Yaqub wrote:

Ok here is what i am noticing since a long time finally i am going to ask

photo looks different against Black or white backgrounds .Got what i am saying ? should i edit photos according to photoshop background color ?
or this has something to do with my monitor ?

I agree with the other posters who set the background of their screen to a neutral grey. That said, what you really want is the same environment all the time. After a few packages of ruined paper you will learn what the difference between your monitor and your printer is, and will adjust one to work with the other or will develop a good eye for estimating.

But the difference you point out is one reason why you must consider the frame, matting, and room where the photograph will be displayed. In general I like black or charcoal backgrounds for color prints. Generally a white background will dazzle the eye, and then you are less able to pick out the subtleties in the shadow areas of the picture. The opposite is almost never true.

For black and white prints I like to use 'off colors' Mount a snowscape on a dark steel blue matt. Mount a picture of dunes on ivory or very pale yellow matt. In essence you are letting the matt chose the tone of the picture.

Room lighting is critical. A dimmer room needs a somewhat brighter print to compensate for the poor lighting. If the walls are not neutral in color, you may need to compensate in the print. E.g. A room that has green walls has less red illumination than it should. (Green paint is preferentially absorbing red) So the red channel needs to be brighter to compensate.

HOWEVER, the human eye is good at re-establishing white point, (You don't notice that tungsten lit rooms are orange. But look at a color picture of foliage in a tungsten lit room, and see how dark and unvibrant it looks.) so the degree of compensation is more about luminance than it is about color.

This is also why good museums have neutral coloured walls for displaying artwork.

You can use things like this to trick the eye. If you use a cut matt (matt with grooves cut into it.) everyone assumes that the grooves are cut into pure white art board. If the matt itself isn't black, but is instead a very dark grey, and the white grooves are touched up to be a very pale grey, people's eyes will 'calibrate' to the matt and see it as black and white. your image then will have highlights that are 'super white' -- whiter than white, and super black, blacker than the black of the matt. Gives the illusion of greater constrast ratio.

pathfinder

Great demonstration Awais.

Some galleries require white matting for images on display also. But your black matting certainly demonstrate better shadow detail in the image than the white matting does.

My monitor background is neutral gray - 100% neutral gray, all the time.