JohnR Loc: The Gates of Hell

I read quite often of the issue of calibrating monitors/screens for printing purposes and it often makes me wonder how/what/why is this so.

In a recent topic in UHH - “Cheaper to Print your own photos?” CHG_CANON mentions his monitor is calibrated and it got me to wondering again!

Thinking about it I would have expected the flow line camera -> computer -> printer would need to be pretty standard worldwide. That is unedited jpegs from any camera (set on auto) should look reasonably correct for colour/brightness on any monitor and should print as such from any printer or printing service anywhere. It would be quite a problem if this wasn't the case. I know of a couple of people who don’t have computers but simply take their camera card direct to a printing service and get prints made. They are perfectly happy with their prints. I’m sure there are many more worldwide who do this and surely their results would have to be reasonably similar

So the questions for those that calibrate are -

Does what you see on your calibrated monitor look the same as what you get in your print ?

If they’re different how are they different ?

What changes did the calibration make to your monitor – did it change the colour or the brightness or the contrast – or did it change all three ?

Just curious – thank you.

For interest I rarely print but colour on my MacBook Retina display and Apple Thunderbolt display always looks pretty good to me without any calibration. Brightness on the MacBook I find needs to be full with the Thunderbolt display turned down a couple of notches to match. I’ve also been happy with the few prints I have made or had printed by a printing service.

Cheers JohnR

Rongnongno Loc: FL

The simple purpose of calibration is for everything to match (monitor, print, projection), a true WYISYG.

Geegee Loc: Peterborough, Ont.

Most monitors are set too bright and when you like what you see on the monitor the print is usually too dark. Your can compensate of course, but expensive, frustrating trial and error sessions can be eliminated if your monitor is calibrated. The image on your screen will be exactly what you see on the print. Also, if you do post processing you will get better results working with an image on the screen which is accurate (calibrated).

JD750 Loc: SoCal

Monitor Calibration is part of color management. Color management is required if you are working with others or if you want consistent color in your shared photographs and prints. In theory if you and I are using color management then the images we share will look the same to both of us.

Why is color management necessary? Color is a complex subject. And unfortunately creating and viewing images, there are many variables, browsers and monitors, for starters, printers. Different browsers handle color differently. Monitors, even Macs, change color over time. My personal experience (Mac user) is that Mac monitors are pretty good but with age they change a little. They tend to shift slightly toward blue over time. If you are retouching using a monitor with a color bias, then the results will only look good on the monitor with the bias. Regular calibration nudges the sliders to keep things “centered”.

Printing usually requires color management for consistent results when using different printers.

I recommend you do a little reading on the subject of “Color Management” then I think you will understand the bigger picture and you can decide for yourself if it is something you need or not.

JD750 Loc: SoCal

Monitor brightness is another topic. For best results when viewing color the room light should be consistent and with light of neutral color and not shining directly on the monitor. Monitor brightness ranging from 80-120 Lux is recommended, depending on ambient light. Ambient light should not be bright.

If your light meter measures lux and has a spot metering feature, you can use it to measure brightness if you like. I find that 80-120 Lux for my MacBookPro screen brightness corresponds to center to three bars above the center on the brightness adjustment indicator.

Gene51 Loc: Yonkers, NY, now in LSD (LowerSlowerDelaware)

Does what you see on your calibrated monitor look the same as what you get in your print ?

It depends. Paper, ink, printer, display, and images all have different color gamuts. So it is impossible to get a match. But you can get close.

If they’re different how are they different ?

It depends. If you have a lot of out of gamut colors in your image you will likely see really "off" colors. If you are using a cheap printer with 3 or 4 inks, it will be worse than printing on wide gamut color paper with a printer that has 10 or more inks. The rendering intent you select can mitigate how off the colors will be, and soft-proofing is important to ensure that you can see, using the printer's inks, how it might turn out.

Bear in mind that a display is a light transmission device with a backlight, and a print reflects light. So even the color of the light that you choose to view your print in will affect its color accuracy.

What changes did the calibration make to your monitor – did it change the colour or the brightness or the contrast – or did it change all three ?

Both color and brightness can change - but the brightness should be your choice - for a starting point, you set the white point to 80 CDA/M².

bleirer

If you send the image out to print, the lab usually has some correction for color, lightness, saturation, etc. either automatic or for more expensive print shops, done by a person. That usually gives a nice standard print. It's only if you want greater control over the process and have a certain artistic intent you don't want the lab to mess with that you would go down the rabbit hole of calibrating the monitor and using a printer profile to soft proof.

JimH123 Loc: Morgan Hill, CA

Changed all 3.

Before I calibrated my dual monitors, if I would drag an image from one side to the other side, it would look different and no amount of adjustments would make it the same.

And after calibration, it looks identical and there is no change whatsoever from one side to the other.

I few years ago, someone posted a lion taken in Africa and it was way overexposed. I reduced the exposure (as best a JPEG would allow) and entered it back into his thread with it looking much better that the original. And then the replies started coming in with all the people who thought the original looked better.

There are a whole lot of uncalibrated monitors out there!

JohnR Loc: The Gates of Hell

Thank you for your interest - sadly I may not have explained my questions well enough as you seem not to have answered any. I was not questioning the purpose of calibration - just enquiring as to how their images look after calibration as compared with before.

JohnR Loc: The Gates of Hell

Thanks JD750 but I don't need or want colour management as I don't print much and it would only be for personal use anyway if I did print. I'm happy with the colour on my MacBook with a Thunderbolt display - they appear to my eye to be a quite accurate representation of what I saw before raising my camera to my eye! Thats all I need. Still wondering what others see - do you see an incorrect colour on your calibrated screen so that it prints out as the correct colour on a print? Or maybe it was incorrect before you calibrated? Never mind - only a passing interest - not of world shattering importance

JohnR Loc: The Gates of Hell

Thanks for answering so well Gene51. Another question I might have asked was whether your colours on your monitor looked correct or incorrect before you calibrated and is it accurate afterwards?

Rongnongno Loc: FL

My answer stays the same. The purpose of calibration is to have everything look the same. If one has a different output from one media to the other... What would be the point?

On my calibrated monitor the images are always brighter than on a 'normal' monitor. THAT is the main issue. Calibrate all you want make your work as perfect as you want (you should) will never prevent folks not seeing images with a different display, too dark, too bright, too warm too cold... If they have a calibrated monitor they will really see your work which is another reason why you should calibrate your monitor.

As to the before and after on calibrated monitor? Wear sunglasses to look at it then remove the glasses. Simple as that.

Acountry330 Loc: Dothan,Ala USA

Would it not be nice if everyone's equipment did it all the same. I am sure that will never happen. Happy Shooting.

tcthome Loc: NJ

I understand Apple screens are pretty good out of the box. Did the prints you had made match your monitor exactly. Hold one up next to your screen, ( just curious ).

tcthome Loc: NJ

Back about 10 years ago, with a point & shoot camera, pic taken, uploaded to my labtop, sent to printer. Results = dark washed out ugly unmatched colors. Since purchasing the DSLR , I went rite in with a calibrated monitor, using the profiles for the printer/paper combination ( like the printing service you use does ) & the results match pretty close with me having to turn up the brightness on output to the printer on matte papers.