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Laptop Images vs PC Images, Help Please

photomagicphotomagic Registered Users Posts: 257 Major grins
edited June 5, 2008 in Digital Darkroom
[FONT=Verdana, sans-serif]Hi,

.

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    gluwatergluwater Registered Users Posts: 3,599 Major grins
    edited June 4, 2008
    photomagic wrote:
    [FONT=Verdana, sans-serif]Hi,

    I have decided to start editing images on my laptop for when I am away from my PC. I used to on my old laptop when I first went digital, but decided to just edit on my PC since I was home more and laptop couldn't hold all the photos. smiley.gif So I have no decided to go back to editing on my laptop, but have ran into an issue.

    I edited a few photos on my PC a few weeks ago and I just started to finish editing the same folder on my laptop. I came across a couple of images I remember editing on my PC and they looked extremely different on my laptop than on my PC. I turned my PC on and sure enough, very different. The whites on the PC held detail to where the whites on my laptop were very much blown out! Difference in saturation and some other artifacts I don't know the name of. Why is this?

    I did calibrate my laptop a few days ago. I have changed around the settings in PS and that didn't make a difference. I just looked up my settings on my laptop monitor as I haven't messed with these, but am not sure what they should be at. Does anyone know? Gamma, brightness, contrastconfused.gif

    Thank you for your help in advance. Sorry for the length and all the questions.

    Michele     [/FONT]
    I'm sure someone will chime in with a more technical answer but until then. Laptop screens do not have the detail or color range as desktop monitors do. I use a laptop for my editing but I have an LCD hooked up to it. Viewing the same image on two screens through the same computer yields different colors and detail. That is the drawback of editing on a laptop, even a very high end one.
    Nick
    SmugMug Technical Account Manager
    Travel = good. Woo, shooting!
    nickwphoto
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    photomagicphotomagic Registered Users Posts: 257 Major grins
    edited June 4, 2008
    gluwater wrote:
    I'm sure someone will chime in with a more technical answer but until then. Laptop screens do not have the detail or color range as desktop monitors do. I use a laptop for my editing but I have an LCD hooked up to it. Viewing the same image on two screens through the same computer yields different colors and detail. That is the drawback of editing on a laptop, even a very high end one.

    .
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    CatOneCatOne Registered Users Posts: 957 Major grins
    edited June 5, 2008
    photomagic wrote:
    Thank you, Nick... I know several professional photographers who edit their photos successfully on their laptop only. So after knowing and seeing that for the past few years I am determined to make it work... :)... There has to be a solution to my problem... Also, knowing I once successfully edited images on my really old laptop before changing over to the "right" way, I feel I can succeed again... :)

    I hope.... :)

    Not really possible. Typically, laptop screens are 6 bits per pixel and use dithering. They are *extremely* sensitive to off-axis color shift, unlike a quality 8-bit monitor.

    You can try, but there's no way to get absolute color accuracy out of a laptop screen. And if yours is off, it may not be possible to get it calibrated "close enough" for what you want.
    My Landscape Galleries
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    photomagicphotomagic Registered Users Posts: 257 Major grins
    edited June 5, 2008
    CatOne wrote:
    Not really possible. Typically, laptop screens are 6 bits per pixel and use dithering. They are *extremely* sensitive to off-axis color shift, unlike a quality 8-bit monitor.

    You can try, but there's no way to get absolute color accuracy out of a laptop screen. And if yours is off, it may not be possible to get it calibrated "close enough" for what you want.
    .
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    SloYerRollSloYerRoll Registered Users Posts: 2,788 Major grins
    edited June 5, 2008
    photomagic wrote:
    Well, I figured out one problem. My calibration had different settings than my laptop's screen did. Hopefully once I correct the settings and have them match, I will be where I would like to be.

    Thank you for your response... I will take that into consideration...
    CatOne is telling the truth. It's not really possible. Now it IS possible to judge exposure off of the numbers referencing the histogram and other tools. But this is not done by eye.

    Bottom line. You're not going to be able to edit images visually the same way on a laptop LCD as you would a desktop higher end LCD or CRT. No matter how much you tweak.

    -Jon
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    photomagicphotomagic Registered Users Posts: 257 Major grins
    edited June 5, 2008
    SloYerRoll wrote:
    CatOne is telling the truth. It's not really possible. Now it IS possible to judge exposure off of the numbers referencing the histogram and other tools. But this is not done by eye.

    Bottom line. You're not going to be able to edit images visually the same way on a laptop LCD as you would a desktop higher end LCD or CRT. No matter how much you tweak.

    -Jon

    Thank you Jon...
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    Ric GrupeRic Grupe Registered Users Posts: 9,522 Major grins
    edited June 5, 2008
    photomagic wrote:
    . Was just hoping to get a little help!

    That's what you received. nod.gif

    I think some of the high end mac's do a decent job, AFAIK that's it.
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    jwearjwear Registered Users Posts: 8,006 Major grins
    edited June 5, 2008
    and I know several professional photographers who only use there laptop for editing with great success... So I know its possible and can be done. And I am determined to be able to do so again....

    I have had the experience as those that have posted .I returned the laptop not one thing I liked but the question is-- if you know these guys why not ask them ,you know they use only a laptop ask them . size of the screen ,the use of the mouse [not as easy ] coloreek7.gif most are slow, but tell us what the pros say please thumb.gif
    Jeff W

    “PHOTOGRAPHY IS THE ‘JAZZ’ FOR THE EYES…”

    http://jwear.smugmug.com/
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    photomagicphotomagic Registered Users Posts: 257 Major grins
    edited June 5, 2008
    jwear wrote:
    and I know several professional photographers who only use there laptop for editing with great success... So I know its possible and can be done. And I am determined to be able to do so again....

    I have had the experience as those that have posted .I returned the laptop not one thing I liked but the question is-- if you know these guys why not ask them ,you know they use only a laptop ask them . size of the screen ,the use of the mouse [not as easy ] coloreek7.gif most are slow, but tell us what the pros say please thumb.gif

    I did ask them in which they told me how they edit there photos, so I was just trying to get to that point which I have successfully done. My problem was forgetting to set the monitors settings to match the calibration settings - lack of sleep does that to u.. :) Once I fixed that I was good to go. Since then, the 50 photos I have edited on both my laptop and PC have come out with the same results with very little difference between the two. Three of the laptop images I sent down to a lab this evening to get there comment on the photos with the option to print in true color, came back with response that they are good to print and that they wouldn't suggest making any changes... So I am confident this will work for me now as it did 5 years ago... Thank you all for your comments...
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