Images For The Web - What Level Of Brightness Do You Edit In?

THIRTYFIVEMILL

THIRTYFIVEMILL

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Folks, when I edit images that will be published on my blog I always process them using 100% brightness on my monitor. Obviously, many people don't keep their monitors cranked to that level, even during the day, so with regard to light they are not seeing the image as I want them to. Now I understand that monitors are all very different and even if they were the same they wouldn't be calibrated the same but my question for those of you who post pictures for web-based viewing is what level of brightness do you employ on your monitor so that the maximum number of viewer will be viewing at something near what you'd want them to? Or is this just an impossible question that most just ignore and simply do their own thing?
 
It's an impossible question which hopefully most will ignore and just stick with their proper calibrated settings.
 
Phil V said:
It's an impossible question which hopefully most will ignore and just stick with their proper calibrated settings.
Click to expand...

This is really what I'm trying to establish. Phil. I'm not a professional photographer so my images are posted just for the love of it. That said, I'd still like them to be seen in their best light. So the question is simply this: for those images that you publish solely on the web, not the ones you print, just the web-based images, do you compensate during editing for the monitors of the masses or not?

I was rather hoping people wouldn't just ignore the question or that rather defeats the object of the forum, you'd have thought. :suspect:
 
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I didn't mean people would ignore the question, I meant photographers should advise you to ignore what other peoples monitors would look like.

Basically, other peoples monitors will be all over the place - so chasing their settings is a road to hell. But if your monitor is calibrated properly, then you know that you've processed your pictures correctly, so they'll look OK to most people and hopefully fantastic to other photographers.

It's not about being a pro, what's the point in processing your pictures so that they look right on a device you know isn't set to any standard (unless it's the only place they'll be seen)

Are you aware this is in 'Lighting and Studio'? Maybe get a mod to move it where you might get more help.
 
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Phil V said:
I didn't mean people would ignore the question, I meant photographers should advise you to ignore what other peoples monitors would look like.

Basically, other peoples monitors will be all over the place - so chasing their settings is a road to hell. But if your monitor is calibrated properly, then you know that you've processed your pictures correctly, so they'll look OK to most people and hopefully fantastic to other photographers.

It's not about being a pro, what's the point in processing your pictures so that they look right on a device you know isn't set to any standard (unless it's the only place they'll be seen)

Are you aware this is in 'Lighting and Studio'? Maybe get a mod to move it where you might get more help.
Click to expand...

OK, thanks for that, Phil. My apologies for posting in the wrong forum.
 
It is actually a good question, but with no easy answer. Should you also assume that as well as being too bright other people's monitors will also tend towards the blue side of things, or maybe lack the contrast of a good display.

To take this further I'm in the market for a new laptop. I adore high resolution, not just for photo work, but for everything. Right now I have 1920x1200 on a 17" display, but I'm seriously considering a 15" rMBP, primarily for the display. I tried one for an hour or two last week and my photos looked absolutely breathtaking in Lightroom without a single adjustment. By comparison the exact same photos needed a colour tweak, contrast enhancement and a good stiff dose of sharpening on another machine and still couldn't get close to the deluxe image from the rMBP.

Now, it's all well and good me having a lovely time viewing my photos on my beautiful display, but if they're going to look like soft, washed out cack to most other people am I on a hiding to nothing? Furthermore, since I would run the rMBP at native resolution those tiny little 800x533 webshots that most people post will look like postage stamps on the rMBP, so trying to judge much at all from this forum and others would be pretty worthless.

So what to do - run it at 1440x900 or 1920x1200 to suit the great unwashed, or set it up at a glorious 2880x1800 purely for my own satisfaction?
 
I wouldn't worry too much.

For sanity sake I always verify what my web images look like on my IPad.

Cheers.

Dav
 
We use iMacs now all Uncalibrated, and bog standard pc monitors for the rest of the kit, again uncalibrated, *** mr and mrs smith are not using calibrated monitors.

We learned the hard way after calibrating 11 machines in the studio and the images went to rat poo, put them back to default ASAP.
 
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