Exposure Level of photographs

[Shakyphoto (Slim)]

Members,

If you look a the my following flickr link, would you judge my photos to be very underexposed, slightly under exposed, or fine the way they are?

http://www.flickr.com/photos/stephen_tl/

The reason I ask is that I recently bought a high end printer and my photos are all coming out a bit too dark, so I'm doing some calibration.

Thank for the help.

[Alan Klein]

They look OK to me- very nice pictures too.  What do they look like on a histogram?

[Praki]

Hi Slim:
Same thing happened to me - there is a very nice article by Andrew Rodney, http://www.luminous-landscape.com/tutorials/why_are_my_prints_too_dark.shtml. Also one of my problems was that the Apple print drivers overrode my Epson drivers and that caused some problems. When I deleted the Apple Gutenprint or some such drivers and reloaded Epson drivers, that also helped clear the problem. Now Apple keeps sending me updates to install those darn printer drivers and there is a way of disabling those updates but that only works for a period of time. Wish Apple would stay the heck out of my printer drivers!
Praki.

[Eric Myrvaagnes]

The exposures look just right for the web. I agree that Andrew Rodney's article that Praki mentions is a must read.

[Shakyphoto (Slim)]

Hi Guys,

Thanks for the initial feedback and please keep the comments coming.  For example, here are a few of my photos that I think are underexposed on my calibrated monitor.  If you can't see the detail in the mountains, trees, beach, and monument respectively, they are underexposed.  If you can, then I know that for the web then these photos are okay.  For those of you that print, do you have two different copies of photos then?  One for web and one for prints?


The Valley by shakyphoto, on Flickr


IMG_2810 by shakyphoto, on Flickr


Movement in Buenos Aires by shakyphoto, on Flickr


DSC09279-2 by shakyphoto, on Flickr


Marooned by shakyphoto, on Flickr


DSC01547-2 by shakyphoto, on Flickr


Edinburgh All in One by shakyphoto, on Flickr


IMG_2761 by shakyphoto, on Flickr

[Alan Klein]

This thread is very timely for me.  I'm getting a new NEC monitor with their SpectraView calibrator.  The intent is to start printing more both at home and in a lab. 

If you spend all the time calibrating, adjusting colors in your monitor etc, to get correct colors and a correct histogram that doesn't clip and then get dark pictures when you print, what is the whole point of calibrating your monitor?  Is it just a waste of time?  What do you have to do to adjust for this "problem"?

[Alan Klein]

PS I'm using Windows 8.1 and Lightroom.

[sdwilsonsct]

...what is the whole point of calibrating your monitor?  Is it just a waste of time?  What do you have to do to adjust for this "problem"?

I found the above-mentioned article very helpful, as well as related threads in the Colour Management forum.

[pikeys]

The exposures look just right for the web. I agree that Andrew Rodney's article that Praki mentions is a must read.

+1 on Eric's post.
They are excellent images
Well Done!!

Mike

[Shakyphoto (Slim)]

Okay I'm temporarily adding the new redone photos with post processing to the new calibration.  Do the new ones look any better or are they too washed out?  See above in the post.  Again, thanks for the help here.

[Alan Klein]

They seem too bright to me, washed out. 

[pikeys]

They seem too bright to me, washed out. 

I agree,I like the original images,they have more impact-IMHO

Mike

[Marlyn]

Suggest the LuLu tutorial  'From Camera to Print' as well. 

It covers a lot of this.

And Finally, book by Jeff Schewe   http://www.amazon.com/Digital-Print-Preparing-Lightroom-Photoshop-ebook/dp/B00E0LASDO/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1392707101&sr=8-1&keywords=jeff+schewe


Calibrated monitors make it possible, but it is a bit complex to get it all correct.   And there are always different settings for the WEB  vs the PRINT. 
Suggest looking at softproofing as well.

[Lightsmith]

Simply put a monitor is going to present a much brighter picture than a B&W or color paper print. The monitor when adjusted will appear dark but it will provide a much better idea as to whether the file needs to be changed for the output desired. I have a normal setting and an editing for printing setting for the monitor.

Some of your pictures appear under exposed but there is no way to know if this is the result of the exposure or how it was converted from RAW or how it was processed in Photoshop. In some of the B&W pictures there is an absence of mid tones and this is more likely to be from the post processing than from the original exposure.

Do you own testing with your camera(s) and take a series of pictures at -1 EV, 0 EV, and +1 EV and process them from RAW and adjust the EV with the converter and then examine the results. When I have done this the -1 EV were never the best but a surprising number of the better images were the ones with the +1 EV exposure setting.

For my volume of printing it is less expensive and I get more consistent results by using a pro lab. I also get much more durable prints than I would get with inkjet printing. I use inkjet for printing on canvas and metal but not for paper.

[shadowblade]

Hi Guys,

Thanks for the initial feedback and please keep the comments coming.  For example, here are a few of my photos that I think are underexposed on my calibrated monitor.  If you can't see the detail in the mountains, trees, beach, and monument respectively, they are underexposed.  If you can, then I know that for the web then these photos are okay.  For those of you that print, do you have two different copies of photos then?  One for web and one for prints?

Nope - just one image file, which I resample to the final resolution and to which I apply output sharpening just before exporting for print. Colours are handled by print profiles and RIPs.

[nma]

The answer to whether or not a raw image is properly exposed is to analyze its histogram, say in PS or LR.  A properly exposed histogram has no over exposed under exposed elements. A properly exposed image that is easily printable has a histogram with most of the information in the midtones and good shadow and highlight representation in the histogram.  If you have a good histogram and it is easily printable, then print problems are due to other factors. And note that the histogram does not depend on the brightness of your monitor.

[John Rodriguez]

Looking at your site, some appear overexposed, some underexposed and some just right.  In general when shooting landscape you don't want large portions of your image with clipped highlights unless you're doing it deliberately (ex: some high key images).  However, it's often good to have some clipping in specular highlights as the extended dynamic range can make your photographs pop.  A great way to check your values is to use the eyedropper in the info pallete set to LAB color and read out the luminosity values, which run 0-100.  100 is pure white, 0 is pure black.  Also if you put your cursor on the histogram in photoshop you can see what percentage of your pixels are at that value.

As far as histogram shape - it is completely dependent on your image.  Some images may be 80% shadows, 18% mid tones and 2% highlights or vice versa depending on the content of your composition.

In terms of dark prints, there are lots of good resources on color management that can take you through the process. One tip that isn't always mentioned:

- Make sure you control your print evaluation lighting.  It's very easy to think your prints are too dark if evaluating under tungsten lamps at night.  If you don't mind spending the coin you can get a desktop print viewer, or you can build one yourself.  Another option is to use a high CRI wide dispersion bulb in a household lamp, place your print on a big piece of white backing board and then using a light meter to measure the illumination intensity, move the print away from the lamp until you get in the ~2000 lux range.