 Chris N. Sweet |
Are My Images Underexposed? Hi everyone! I am having serious issues with monitor calibration (I use 2 cheap screens that don't seem to adjust properly), and I am not sure if what I see when I print is accurate or not. What I have done is adjusted my monitors to match my printer profile as best I can, and this has resulted in the last few images I uploaded looking underexposed! Could someone who knows their monitors to be true please have a look at my latest uploads (the ones of clevedon pier and such) and let me know what you think of the exposure so I can gauge whether it is my monitors or my printer profile? Thank you so much for your help!
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- Gregory LaGrange Contact Gregory LaGrange Gregory LaGrange's Gallery |
I'm surprised your brother Tony didn't help you. The first two do look dark. But I'm not sure if it's because of your monitor. I might say it is your monitor if I knew if or what you did to the picture afterwards. I'm thinking that it's how you took the picture, if not a combination of both. You are silhouetting everything. And you also have something that's tall relative to the frame up close, taking up a chunk of space. If you were farther back, the picture might look better overall. It would reduce the size of the big thing and make more of the highlights more prominent. But, I want to say you might just be under exposing because of trying to get a sunset. Even to get a silhouette, you have to open up some to keep everything else that shows detail(sky, tops of rocks, ground) to look right.
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Richard Lynch |
If you are not sure that what you see is accurate, you may want to get sure. Monitor calibration is a first and necessary step in getting your images to behave and your process to become predictable. You can't just ask a few people how it looks and hope that they have their screens looking right. You also can't depend on what your printer is spitting out to be accurate as color management will play into that as well as the character of the printer and paper. Calibrate your own monitor and stop guessing. I use a Color Vision Spyder, but the Spyder Express that is well under $100 will do what you need and probably save you that amount in testing and wasted time if you do printing at home. I also teach some courses here at BetterPhoto that look at the whole process of making your images the best they can be, and defining a workflow: Correct and Enhance Your Images and From Monitor to Print: Photoshop Color Workflow. The process of correcting and enhancing and following a stable color workflow covers a whole process, not just one point (monitor calibration) or another (printer profiles). It works as a continuum. All that said, the beginning series seems it may be a bit under-exposed, BUT I also don't know what you did to them. You shoot in RAW, but that doesn't mean there is no compensation happening when the image is opened even if you are not doing something Camera RAW is. Unless you have manipulated these a lot already, you can make adjustments to effectively bring more out of the images. if they look right on your screen, likely your screen is a bit too bright ... and just lowering the brightness is NOT the best way to be sure it is correct. That, and some of what Gregory said too ;-)
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Chris N. Sweet |
Thanks guys. By the way, I dont have a brother called Tony!
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Richard Lynch |
Tony Sweet, one of the illustrious instructors here at betterphoto ;-)
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Giordano |
Hi Chris, Whatever you do, stay away from Pantone Huey. Gio
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Chris N. Sweet |
To be honest guys, I think I am going to have to replace my monitors, I cant get them balanced and one of them has a blue cast to it which I cant get rid of! They dont adjust as they should so I think hardware calibration tools such as eyeone etc would be a waste of time. Cheers for you advice guys.
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