Matching monitor to paper contrast - how to?

[Alan Goldhammer]

Alan, your observation makes sense if you're talking stock photos. However, if you are being commissioned by an office to decorate their walls with photos, I would presume they could allow you in to measure the surrounding conditions and lighting, giving you the info you would need to customize the prints you would be selling to them. Does that make some sense?

Yes, one can certainly do that.  Unlike galleries that make good efforts to provide appropriate lighting, most office settings do not.  Of course to do such individualized printing based on site visit(s) would necessarily drive up the cost of the print(s).

[Jim Kasson]

Yes, one can certainly do that.  Unlike galleries that make good efforts to provide appropriate lighting, most office settings do not.  Of course to do such individualized printing based on site visit(s) would necessarily drive up the cost of the print(s).

And museums take great pains to provide lousy lighting, because they have illumination standards that prioritize print life.

http://blog.kasson.com/the-last-word/improving-on-the-museum-experience/

Jim

[Hening Bettermann]

-- tried to post this, but can't see it in the thread. Because of the 2 jpegs? I'll try this one without--
--so this one shows. That were 2 jpegs about 400 kB each.--

Thanks for all your comments!

Tim,

>The curator or restaurant owner don't much care what it looked like on the photographer's backlit display.

No, but I have to find a solution that allows me to preview the print on screen.

> Then there is no solution for you.

Well I hope to find one.
1-I would have to increase the indirect/diffuse light so there is more of it at the site of the image. As you said. Not sure it will be possible.
2-I would have to establish direct light at an angle of 45°, hoping that helps more or less, and hoping the gallery or other place will do the same.
3-I might, reluctantly, compromise on the gloss, using lustre paper
4-right now, I have tried to reduce monitor brightness to 80 and 60 cd. 60 cd brings the screen quite close to the print. Of course, this is not the way I want my image to look. But for now, it can help me to see that the print is OK in the sense that it will look better in more light.

Strangely, the monitor contrast is not parallel to the monitor brightness (as given by the Eizo software):
60 cd - 257:1;  80 cd - 230:1;  100 cd - 261:1

So the first question seems to be: How much light can I exspect where the image is supposed to hang? And everything else has to be derived from there. Since this is impossible to control, the question is: How much light is enough to make my image look good? So it's a question of absolute level, not just screen-to-print match. It seems to be a minimum of EV 7.

If memory serves me, I arrived at the 100 cd for the monitor about 2011, measuring the light at my local library, and adjusting the monitor by comparing it to the blank paper illuminated to that EV. That was EV 8 ...

Tim, here are 2 shots of my stately mansion to show my setup. It is obvious that more light would need to be directed closer to the print.

[Tim Lookingbill]

It seems you're having trouble uploading jpg's of your setup.

Doesn't matter anyway since you're not going to increase the light for the large print that I'm assuming is larger than your display, so I'll just leave it at that.

[Hening Bettermann]

Hi Tim,
thank you for your concern. It was not waisted ;-) I am eventually facing that I just have to establish more light.

Wrt the softproof in PhotoLine: I have now received the answer from one of the developers. The black point compensation is not chosen in the softproof dialog, but globally under Prefs>Color Management>Standard. Concerning the simulation of paper white, I'll start a new thread, because that leads into a topic of its own.

My own takeaway from this thread:
The ambient light/print viewing light is not only a matter of a relative screen to print match, but also of the absolute amount of light. If the contrast range of the paper is about 7 EVs, it seems logical that the print viewing light is minimum 7 EVs.

Good light!