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Author Topic: Prints too dark but monitor calibrated  (Read 15344 times)

BobShaw

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Re: Prints too dark but monitor calibrated
« Reply #40 on: September 11, 2017, 05:50:56 pm »

Got gray card (an actual 8x10 18% gray card) and metering is now showing 1/6 second instead of 1/30... that ought to do it!
It certainly should. That is over 2 stops from the previous method.
How much quicker was it to actually correctly measure it rather than experiment?
If you stood ten people in a row and asked them to compare the brightness and colour of two objects then you would get 20 answers. The human eye is notoriously variable. It depends on the person, the time of day, how they are feeling etc. There is a famous post where people were asked the colour of a dress, blue or green with varying results. Subjectivity has no place in art reproduction. Fortunately a technical approach will always work.

If you go from correctly exposed with correct camera calibration and scene calibration through to correct print calibration then it should be right.
At least if it isn't then you have a process that you can go back and review and find out where you went wrong or introduce a controlled subjectivity. You have a repeatable process.

The one thing which is completely out of the equation and which everyone spends so much time on is monitor calibration. If the numbers are right then you can ignore the screen. It is not in the path. Cheers.
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Thenolands

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Re: Prints too dark but monitor calibrated
« Reply #41 on: September 11, 2017, 06:36:51 pm »

Well said. Do you have any recommended reading on use of histogram to verify the accuracy of exposure? For example, lets say you had an overall dark toned image, you would expect histogram to be shifted left of center but is there a way to tell if it is also underexposed?

I ask because my family member texted me and said they look good but she had a few that she said "needed tweaking" ... well, what she did was either notch the exposure down or deepen the blacks (not sure which) to something that suited her eye (she is not very technical so she is not basing this on histogram, etc.). So basically the artist is taking a reproduction of her own work and creating another work by changing it! Ugh.  I explained that her monitor was probably too bright, for one thing. But is there a way I can show her technically speaking that these are not "too light"... can you imagine she is darkening these reproductions after all this?! Can't believe it!
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BobShaw

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Re: Prints too dark but monitor calibrated
« Reply #42 on: September 11, 2017, 07:46:39 pm »

Go back to page 1 of this and watch the video from Andrew Rodney. Everything you ever wanted to know about histograms and more.
In a nut shell, i only use the histogram out in the field. In the studio if there is any doubt about exposure I measure it with the incident meter and never look at histograms.
The reason I asked about your lights was in case you were using flash, in which case shutter speed would have no effect.
Your lights are quite weak to need that long a shutter. You then risk ambient light affecting your exposure as well. You would need to turn off the room lights and draw curtains.

There is not much you can do about someone else's monitor. You will need to work from a print or show it on your screen.
« Last Edit: September 11, 2017, 08:59:59 pm by BobShaw »
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digitaldog

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Re: Prints too dark but monitor calibrated
« Reply #43 on: September 11, 2017, 07:53:13 pm »

In the studio if there is any doubt about exposure I measure it with the incident meter and never look at histograms.
Which Histogram? A raw one is kind of useful. RawDigger, worth it's weight in exposure gold.
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