How do you Edit yours?

Seajay

Seajay

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Cathy
Edit My Images
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Morning everyone! Just a quick question... :)

I usually edit in a darkened or semi darkened room but this morning I noticed in Lightroom that as I opened the blind my image got a little lighter, almost like it automatically exposed for my lighting condition.
Now, if my Mac is doing this ,what type of light would you suggest is more suitable for editing? Do you work in a darkened room or daylight ? Which way is your Mac or PC facing from your light source?
Cathy
 
I guess if you are editing for the Web it makes sense to simulate the viewers situation. Which could be anything.
Also, if you are working in a completely dark room after a while you will notice a square when you close your eyes. It is this exposure and colour compensation of the human brain, that will cause your results to be tainted.
 
Ian thank you. I just edit my photographs to get them ready for print so just wondering what situation would be better to work in.
 
Seajay said:
Morning everyone! Just a quick question... :)

I usually edit in a darkened or semi darkened room but this morning I noticed in Lightroom that as I opened the blind my image got a little lighter, almost like it automatically exposed for my lighting condition.
Now, if my Mac is doing this ,what type of light would you suggest is more suitable for editing? Do you work in a darkened room or daylight ? Which way is your Mac or PC facing from your light source?
Cathy
Click to expand...


yeah.. your Mac will be doing this, especially if it's a Mac Book.

I'm sure you can turn that off... I think... While I use Macs at work, I do so under duress and have no idea how to do this. I just know the Macs at work do not do this, so it must be possible. I have a feeling it's a laptop thing though... probably to save power by dimming in darker conditions. A well calibrated screen should be a constant though, and you should manage the room lighting instead.

I use daylight balanced lighting (6500K) and calibrate my monitor to 6500K (D65). During the day, at home I don't edit as I have no effective blackout, and at work the darkroom has no daylight coming in for this reason, as most professional digital editing suites will.. Your colour acuity is seriously affected by the brightness and colour of ambient light.

To give an example, during sunset here at home (this room faces north east) my monitor actually looks cyan/green. I KNOW it's right, but compared to the excessively warm/orange light entering the windows, the neutrally calibrated monitor seems cold. On excessively cloudy days it seems very warm. It hasn't actually changed at all... it's just my brain playing tricks on me. This is another reason professional monitors have hoods over them - to remove extraneous peripheral distractions. Ideally though, for accuracy, remove daylight, and use a known colour temperature light source.

The worst offenders are normal domestic house lighting, which is around 3200 K. It makes a well calibrated monitor seem very cold indeed, and as a result, you tend to over compensate by making your images warmer than they actually are.

My advice is use teh computer in a room where you won't distract anyone else, buy a little desk lamp, and put one of these in it....

http://www.bltdirect.com/prolite-en...ve?adcid=pla&gclid=CJ22pbq50b8CFXDLtAod6jMABQ

Avoid other cheap daylight lamps, some are shockingly bad... I can vouch for Pro Lite though. I use them myself, and have measured their spectral response and it's equally as good as the Normlicht tubes found in professional viewing booths. Bounce an 11Watt Pro Lite off a WHITE wall or ceiling and the light levels shoudl be around near perfect for a monitor calibrated at 100cd/M2.


Even if you DON'T calibrate your screen.... having good ambient lighting will FORCE your brain to make reasonably accurate judgements when editing... unless you have terrible colour acuity.

Room lighting is really important for image editing.
 
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Cathy

I assume you are on a MacBook Pro as this has an option to automatically adjust brightness. Go to System Prefs and select DISPLAY. Here you'll see a a tick box to Automatically adjust brightness. un tick it.

As far as lighting is concerned my room has a slightly off white/ magnolia ( a very variable colour ) painted walls. I tend to try and make any colour judgement during the day rather than at evening or at night as the illumination in the room is more even and on a good day around 6500K.

If you can get decent lighting then that helps. Some energy efficient lamps have various colour temps. However try these

http://uk.daylightcompany.com/product/20w-bc-daylight-energy-saving-bulb/.

They do need a few minutes to reach optimum brightness
 
More expensive than the Pro Lite ones I listed above, and I've actually measured the spectral response.. it's clean: A genuine full spectrum 6500K. They start instantly, have no appreciable warm up time. About £4 each. Win!
 
David and John thank you.
I am using a 27 inch Mac computer not a MacBook I will see if that option you mention is on it John.I will look into trying one of the bulbs as I am sure it will help.

The room I am in is very small all white walls and with only a velux window which has a blackout blind.I tend to pull it down when doing some edits but this was the first time I noticed the change in my images. I actually asked my husband to check as I thought I was seeing things but no! The image got lighter as we pulled up the blind.
I did use my Spyder to callibrate but not sure it works that well now with the new Mac updates.
I only edit for personal use but would just like to check what others did.
Cathy
 
Cathy

The illumination option is not available on the iMac ( Well not inMavericks). Does the Spyder monitor ambient ( some calibration software does this when plugged into the computer.) X-Rite software offers this option. If so I'd turn it off. If this isn't the cause, try covering the iSight camera and see if this is the cause. I've tried to reproduce your problem but had no luck.

I've also done a trawl of the internet, and can only find one instance of this problem that goes back to 2009, and with an older Mac and that seemed a bit iffy
 
I am fairly certain the current iMacs do have some auto brightness control on them as we have some at work and it was noticed that images looked different at different times of the day.
I don't use them personally, nut will try and find out how they got round it.

For me, well I actually edit any time and light which is completely wrong. Lol
I started off well intentioned. I have a flourescent strip lighting with 6500k tube and dimmer which I set based on my Spyder calibrator. Monitor then calibrated to 6500k also.
My desk is at right angles to the windows and the room is generally in shaded daylight anyway.

Results seem to turn out OK for me generally, occasionally the odd one is overly dark. I find watching the histogram during editing helps though.
 
Check the Spyder software for ambient adjustment. Are you leaving the Spyder plugged in? If so, don't... then it CAN'T measure your ambient light. The i1 Display Pro software can measure ambient light and adjust accordingly when the colorimeter is plugged, so maybe the Spyder software can in the latest version. This is generally bad as many screen characteristics will go out of calibration if brightness is adjusted, as many LCD screens use a combination of backlight adjustment and actual LCD adjustments.. You should manage the lighting instead if possible. If you can black out the daylight then grab a Pro Lite bulb from the link I posted above. 11W should be fine for a small(ish) room, and put it in a desklamp aimed at a wall or ceiling.

If you're not leaving it plugged in, then I've no idea what's doing that.
 
Ok had a look and my Spyder is plugged in. I have now removed it from the back of my iMac and will try the blind opening in the morning to see if their is a difference.
I think I may also move my Mac as the velux window is always behind me and that means when I open the blind the daylight is shining towards my IMac.
Thanks everyone I appreciate the help as always
Cathy
 
Yeah.. the new Syder software was reading the ambient light via the Spyder colorimeter. Now it's unplugged, it won't be, but it's still probably wise to find that feature in the spyder software and disable it in case having it checked with no Spyder connected does something weird.
 
Another little update.
My IMac was also set to automatically sort the brightness, but I have taken this off now too :)
 
Good.. it's bad enough if one thing is doing this, but the mac is also increasing brightness as well as the Spyder software, it would have been all over the place.
 
Very true David.

My daylight bulb arrived today Duh! ordered a screw in and I don't have screw in lamps.
I am such a numpty but I will buy a cheap lamp to take it :)
Cathy
 
Seajay said:
Very true David.

My daylight bulb arrived today Duh! ordered a screw in and I don't have screw in lamps.
I am such a numpty but I will buy a cheap lamp to take it :)
Cathy
Click to expand...

Hi Cathy,

Which bulb did you order? Was it the one in David's link.

Thank you
 
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